No Touch
by Penguinator27
Summary: Rapunzel and Flynn live in a city called Corona, and meet when he storms into the back room of the cafe where she works. Coffee shop AU.
1. The End at the Beginning

The End at the Beginning

The sun hadn't yet shown enough of itself to brighten the windows of the coffee shop, so it seemed to Rapunzel when Eugene entered that he emerged straight from the darkness. It gave her an idea for a sketch. Then she remembered the man at the counter staring expectantly at the paper cup in her hand. People usually weren't very articulate or polite before sunrise.

"Here you go, sir. Have a nice day."

The man turned to leave without a word, leaving space for Eugene to move forward. He adjusted the glasses on his face.

"Your usual today, sir?" It was Rapunzel's coworker asking Eugene to make his order.

Eugene's eyes flicked from where they had been—on Rapunzel—to her. He opened his mouth to reply to her, but nothing came out. To stop him from looking like an idiot, Rapunzel inserted herself into the situation.

"Of course he does, Melina." She took his usual-sized cup from a tall stack behind her. "And I'll pay for it on my break, okay?"

"Sure." Melina moved away to arrange the various breads in the glass case next to her, while Rapunzel scooted off to make Eugene's drink.

She wrote _Flynn_ on the cup with her black marker in letters that resembled typescript before she set it beneath the espresso spout. Even though she knew he was watching her, she looked up to catch him at it. He looked solemn—more so than she'd imagined he could be—just like he had when he'd walked in, but he didn't look down or away.

Since no one was waiting in line, she walked out from behind the counter and into the café, Eugene's cup in hand. He watched her walk all the way to his table, but it didn't make her feel awkward. When she reached it, she didn't sit down, knowing the shift would see her. Eugene touched the cup, but made no move to pick it up.

"How did it go?" she all but whispered it, even though there was plenty of noise in the background from a coffee grinder and a running faucet.

Eugene nodded. "It went."

"Is everything alright?" Her mind went to the _Crown_, the Stabbingtons, and the getaway.

"It will be, I think."

He stood up and they were kissing—just like that. Rapunzel had stumbled backwards because he had never come so close so quickly before, but he caught her by the small of her back and pulled her up against him; he had seen to too many details to have any reason to think of distance between them as good or wise any longer.

**AN:** It's short because it's a prologue. It might not be worth its own chapter, but I wanted it to be separated from the first true chapter in the story, which will be posted tomorrow. So—here's to hoping you'll stick around for it. 4/4/12


	2. The Night Starts Here

The Night Starts Here

Though it had since stopped, the morning had been a rainy one, bringing mud and leaves into the coffee shop's café. I didn't know people were allowed to treat public places this way, she thought as she swept the drying mud toward the door with a large push broom. _Well, there's something new to learn every day._ Though the 'something' in the phrase implied but a single thing to learn in a day, she had come to expect that she'd repeat it to herself at least a few more times before falling asleep.

"Rapunzel, could you please run to the back and do some dishes for us? We're running low on pitchers and pastry trays."

"Coming," she called back to the shift, abandoning her growing pile of mud and rain debris to weave through the café's occupied tables.

She'd not been employed at the coffee shop long enough to expect the mass of dishes waiting for her I the giant sink. It didn't matter much; she was accustomed to performing chore-like duties such as these. While the sink filled with soapy water, Rapunzel decided she could begin hauling the full bags of trash to the garbage compressor outside. They were light, containing mostly paper cups and napkins, so she made quick work of them.

Leaning her head into the doorway to make sure the sink wasn't overflowing, she decided she could use a few moments of sunshine—even if it was filtered by clouds. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

_Warm._

A few slapping footsteps on the pavement later, her shoulders were being gripped and slightly shaken, while the man doing said shaking hissed something she couldn't understand at her. Having never before seen the man or been so handled by anyone, she felt rather threatened as he pushed her through the back door. She grabbed the first suitable object she saw: a package of frozen banana bread defrosting on a shelf.

As he staggered from the impact of the banana bread to the side of his head:

"Eeep!"

"God, lady, what was that for?"

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Lady, you've got to hide me—"

"What? Why?"

"Because if you don't, two very large men who are following me are probably going to stomp my face inn with their boots."

"Stomp your—"

"_Please_."

So she shoved him into the adjacent walk-in refrigerator and closed the door behind him.

"Rapunzel?" Crystal the shift was walking through the door. "Would you—_shit_—the sink!"

The bubbles were about a foot taller than the surface of the water, which was dangerously close to spilling onto the floor.

"I'm sorry!" She rushed to turn off the sink.

"I was just going to ask if you could hurry with the pitchers—we need to make more tea." She turned to leave. "And thanks for taking care of the trash, but you need to close the back door; it's a safety hazard."

Rapunzel gulped. "Okay."

"And what are you doing with that banana bread?"

"I—I knocked it over."

"Oh. I hope it didn't break."

As soon as she was sure Crystal the shift wasn't going to come back, she turned to close the back door. Just outside a black pickup truck was idling. The passenger window rolled down, revealing the two large, red-headed men inside.

"Hey, girly. You seen this guy around here?" He held his phone up to her. Even though he was too far for her to be able to make out the likeness on the screen, she got the feeling that she shouldn't get too close to the truck.

"Sorry, I haven't seen anyone out here."

The men in the truck stared at her as if they were waiting for her to say something else.

"Just some birds." She smiled.

The driver nodded, the passenger's window rolled up, and the truck crept away.

After she'd pulled the door shut, she turned to face the closed metal door of the refrigerator. She half hoped that she'd find only shelves of milk and juice when she opened the door. Instead, she found the man she'd hit with banana bread perched on a crate of soy, sucking on the straw of an apple juice box.

"Who're—hey, you can't drink that!"

"Sorry, toots, I got thirsty." He stood up and poked his head out of the refrigerator.

"Hey—" she pushed him back in the refrigerator, brandishing the banana bread at him. "Who're those guys who were looking for you?"

He snaked between her and the refrigerator door. "What do you mean? Was someone asking for me?" But he wasn't looking at her—he was peeking out the port-hole of the swinging door that led to the café.

"Hey, get away from there! I'm going to be in huge—"

"No you won't." He turned to her. "And tanks, Goldie, I owe you one." With that, he slipped out the swinging door at a crouch.

The glimpse she caught of the café reminded her of the dishes. She replaced the still-frozen banana bread to negotiate foam and hot water for the iced tea pitchers. When she carried the pitchers out of the back room a few minutes later she was somehow only mildly surprised to find the man she'd just released the from the refrigerator leaning against the counter, chatting with Stephanie the cashier.

As she neared them, Stephanie pulled her by the forearm that didn't have a pitcher tucked under it.

"C 'mere, let me introduce you to one of the regulars."

The man's smile didn't falter a bit.

"Flynn, this is Rapunzel—she's new."

He held out his hand. "Flynn Rider. Nice to meet you…?"

"Rapunzel."

"Ah. Gesundheit."

Crystal sniggered, but Rapunzel wrinkled her nose at the remark.

"Rapunzel, can you please put those pitchers by the faucet for me?" Crystal the shift was hunched over a pitcher of steaming milk, but had obviously seen Rapunzel come out of the back room.

Rapunzel did as she was told, catching a bit of Flynn and Stephanie's conversation as she walked to the back room again.

"…the caffeine should make you feel better. How'd you get such a bad headache?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess being this awesome just hurts."

Stephanie squeaked a giggle, but Rapunzel snorted. In the last few months she'd met with a greater number of people than she'd ever imagined she'd have the opportunity to. But not one of them in what she was beginning to understand as their monotony was as disconcerting to her as Flynn Rider was in his absurdity.

* * *

><p>Flynn Rider showed up at the coffee shop two days later, in the late morning. The morning rush had already died down, and Rapunzel was putting the finishing mountain of whipped cream atop a mug when she noticed him at the counter speaking to her manger.<p>

"Are you going to have the usual, Flynn?"

"Hmm, I don't know… does little Rapunzel know how to make my drink?" His eyes panned to where she was standing behind the espresso machine.

Rapunzel opened her mouth to reply, feeling a little indignant, but her manager beat her to the punch.

"Oh, you've met! Now, she's only been at it for a few weeks, but she has magic hands!"

Flynn's eyebrows lurched upwards, and Rapunzel looked away.

"How about this—" Rapunzel busied herself toweling down the counter while he talked. "—I'll pay the usual price for my drink, but I want Miss Rapunzel to make me a surprise."

Rapunzel looked up at her manager, whose mouth widened in a smile, while her eyes widened as if to say, _Yes, you're going to do it, and you'd better do it well_.

"Okay." Rapunzel nodded.

This was the hard part of her job. Neither the mopping, scrubbing, sanitizing, nor drink-crafting had made her bat an eyelash; they were all familiar activities to her, at least at a basic level. I was this—the banter, the playfulness that she was expected to engage in—that had her stumped. She felt like she was terrible at gauging people, never knowing when they were being serious or only joking.

At the click of the closing cash drawer, Flynn came to the counter and folded his arms atop it.

"Well? Aren't you going to start?"

"Do you like—"

"Ah ah ah"—he wagged his finger at her—"this is supposed to be a surprise."

Rapunzel began working the pitchers and water while he watched.

"Can you put it in a mug for me? I think I want to hang out for a while."

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Why not?"

"Are you just trying to check up on me? Make sure I haven't told anyone what happened the other day?"

"No. I _know_ you didn't tell anyone what happened."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because _I_ probably would have said something by now, and you're not like me; you seem nice."

Here was the challenge: knowing she should say something back, but not knowing what to say. Would she feel like this about conversation forver?

"You seem alright."

He chuckled. "Thanks."

She carefully positioned the mug in front of him on the counter. "Ta-da."

"Would you look at that! Is that an _F_ for 'Flynn'? In foam?"

Rapunzel nodded.

"How'd you do that?"

She shrugged. "I just do."

"Seems a shame to spoil it, but I'm gonna taste it anyway."

He drank from the mug with his pinky finger sticking out. Rapunzel wasn't sure she'd seen other men drink that way—_perhaps he's trying to be funny?_—but decided she shouldn't make anything of it in case that was just how he held mugs.

Flynn smacked his mouth. "Interesting. What is it?"

"It's black tea with some hot milk on top. And some vanilla syrup."

"And… why did you decide to make this for me?"

Rapunzel's manager passed her another customer's cup, so she began to pump syrup and drop shots even as she answered him.

"It was the first thing that came to me. Probably because it's what I drink."

"Ah, this is _your_ drink."

"Almost. I take mine with soy milk and without the vanilla syrup—you seem like the kind of person who likes extras." She added the last part hesitantly.

"Oh my god, I'm drinking soy milk?"

"No, no, you're drinking regular milk—I know most people prefer it."

"Prefer it? Girlie, you almost lost your tip over it."

"Well—do you like it?"

He took another sip. "To be honest, I'm more of a coffee drinker. But yes, it's good."

* * *

><p>Rapunzel shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun pouring in through the shop's front windows while she waited for her manager to dispense her day's share of the tips, and did not notice Flynn leave his table and walk outside. She did see him standing next to a car parked on the curb, fishing in his bag, presumably for keys. She pointedly looked ahead and kept walking.<p>

"Hey—Rapunzel!"

She turned around.

"Hey, you off for today?"

She nodded.

"You need a ride anywhere?"

"No, thanks."

"Okay, then." He slipped some sunglasses on and opened the door. "Some other time. Remember, I still owe you one."

Rapunzel didn't mean to watch him go, but he was in his car and on the street in a matter of seconds.

She went back to walking. Even though the sun soon started to heat the skin beneath her clothes, she felt relieved that she wasn't in his car with him. Every car she'd ever been in had been full of awkward silence—and that she hated. It was yet another uneasy social situation she hadn't learned to remedy. It wasn't one she often had to think about, though; the city busses were also sometimes packed with too many people in one place, but it never felt wrong to not talk to—or even ignore—the person sitting next to you. On a bus, it was perfectly fine to flip through one's book or just stare out the window and tune out people's phone conversations, accidentally bump someone's elbow, or pretend the boy standing in the aisle wasn't leering at you. In its way, it was peaceful.

A few blocks away from the bus stop was her apartment. It was tucked away inside a big, _big_ house that had been converted into several small units. When she came to see it with her social worker, she had explained that it was called a pre-furnished studio. She then helped her carry up her bags of second-hand clothes and various necessities, then left her to herself.

When Rapunzel walked up the single set of stairs that led to her landing she could hear her neighbors arguing at what she though must be the tops of their voices. _I wonder what they're arguing about _today_?_

The apartment air was stuffy when she walked in; she opened one window, but left the only other one in the place closed so she wouldn't disturb the pigeons on the windowsill. The kitchen was spotless—as she'd left it—and the sofa-sleeper was folded into a prim couch, her pillow and blanket stuffed in the bottom of the closet. She deposited her bag in one of the chairs at the small breakfast table and sat in the other one after pouring herself a cup of water.

Her notebook lay open on the table, a pen nearby. Rapunzel dragged the notebook closer, touched the pen to the paper, and let her mind go.

Growing up she realized that it was easy to let her mind and hands take over when it came to drawing or painting—though she'd also found that doing so was not always wise. But these days—with no one to inspect what she'd done—she let herself go rather often. Working at curves and lines, lights and darks, building fractions of a whole was the only way she could comfortably let her mind wander.

When there was nothing else to add, she set the pen down and took a sip of water. She was surprised to find on the paper a re-creation of one of her own creations: a shiny mug of tea topped with foam in the shape of a cursive _F_, for Flynn.

**AN**: So it goes. If you've read this far, I'd love to know what you think about it—for good or for ill. Hope to see you in chapter 2. 4/6/12


	3. You'll Never Walk, Only Stagger

You'll Never Walk, Only Stagger

Restaurants were presently things of both fear and fascination to Rapunzel. Early on, she realized they were everywhere, though she wondered why there should be so many if people could just eat at home; there were various names for them, like _grill_, _joint_, and _house_; and they were more expensive than buying food to make herself from the store. They beckoned to her while she went to and from work, though her inexperience with them kept her at bay.

If anything was to be believed from the novels she'd been checking out from the library, though, going to eat at restaurants was absolutely the norm. Rapunzel decided she had to do this too.

Between the bus stop and her apartment was a place called The Snuggly Duckling- Pub & Eats. She'd scoped this place out and chosen it as her first dining destination based partly on its nearby location, partly on its benign-sounding name. Though she'd wondered if she should dress in a particular way, Rapunzel was forced to admit that her jeans and solid-colored shirts were all essentially the same. Thus simply clothed, she entered the Snuggly Duckling on a Thursday evening.

Foremost she noticed the noise. Loud voices and louder music from a live band in the corner far surpassed anything she'd ever heard in the coffee shop. Besides this she was taken aback at how packed full of people it was. As the door closed behind her she realized this was probably because nearly everyone she could see was larger than her in either height or width- and mostly male.

There were tables everywhere, but they were overflowing with people and their mugs, crowded with people and their games of cards. But there was a spot at the long counter to the side of the room along with an empty stool- she could just see herself in it. She had to squeeze between spaces in the direction she needed to go; walking normally was impossible. Someone else figured it out, though. The person- distinctly feminine, in a small dress- had gained so much speed that she knocked Rapunzel aside with her shoulder as she shot past her.

Rapunzel realized there was a strong likelihood that the woman had been running _from_ something, of course. But the uproar that sounded near the back of the place as she regained her footing caught her attention. Even the band stopped playing. Whatever was going on, she wanted to see it.

It was easier to move around since everyone was standing still. There was a bit of empty space that had formed near a wall, and she stopped at the edge of it.

"Look, guys, I think it's clear that there's been some misunderstanding here."

"What's not to understand? My wallet was in your pocket!"

Rapunzel's view was partially obscured by a large, bald man doing some of the yelling, but just past him she could see Flynn Rider. He looked nervous, and his arms were being held behind his back by a huge man with a woolen cap that almost obscured his face.

"I don't know who you think you are-" the bald man lunged quickly, driving a jab straight into Flynn's gut.

Rapunzel didn't need to see him double over; she knew this was bad.

"Hey! Let him go!" But it didn't even seem like the people right next to her—let alone the bald man—had noticed she'd said anything.

He was raising his arm, presumably to strike Flynn again. And something was happening to Rapunzel. The same melding of thought and action that happened when she was drawing or when she knew it was time to escape was taking over.

Someone next to her was holding a huge mug that was mostly empty. She snatched it away and hurled it onto the floor in front of her.

"I said let him go!"

This worked much better; everyone had quieted and turned to look at her- even the man who had just punched Flynn.

"And why should I do that, sweetheart? So he can turn around and steal something else from me?" A few people jeered in approval. "Nah, I think I'm going to teach him what happens when his fingers get too sticky, then I'm gonna call the cops and let them have him."

"No!"

Laughter.

"And why not?"

"Because- because he owes me. _Big_. And- and- if you let the police have him he'll never pay me back!"

The bald man turned around fully to face Rapunzel, revealing a menacing-looking prosthetic piece where his right hand should have been.

"And how'd a little thing like you get mixed up with this scum?"

"By accident."

A few people chuckled.

The man stared at her for a short length, then sighed.

"Look, Miss- get this shithead outa my sight and see that he never sets foot in here again. _You_-" he jabbed the prosthetic at her "- make sure he pays you back, and try not to break any more of my drinkware next time you're in here."

Rapunzel nodded and waited until she saw Flynn's arms released before turning to go. It didn't take anything to get to the door; people moved aside for her now. The guitars of the band kicked back up as she crossed the threshold.

The front part of her head was throbbing in time with the beat of her heart, and she felt as if she could break into a run, so she continued walking down the sidewalk without stopping. Flynn caught up with her; she could see him out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey, where're you going?"

"I don't know."

"I, uh, think I owe you another one."

"What?"

"For... you know." He gestured behind him, towards the Snuggly Duckling.

"Oh. I don't actually want anything from you. I was just trying to keep you from getting beaten up."

"Well you did a pretty good job. I would have never expected anything like that out of you."

"I know, right? I can't believe I broke that glass!"

"Uh...yeah."

She stopped walking. "Actually- you do owe me. You ruined my dinner; I was going to eat there."

"At the Snuggly Duckling?"

"Why not? There serve food, don't they?"

"Yeah- gross bar food. Not suitable dinner fare."

"That's what you owe me, then. Find me a place with 'suitable dinner fare.' Please."

They continued a little further down the sidewalk until they reached Flynn's car.

Rapunzel slid into the passenger seat, already wondering if this car ride would surpass the awkwardness of ones past. Once the door was closed she realized she was sitting on something.

She pulled it out from under her and held it up. "Sorry, I sat on your scarf."

Flynn squinted his eyes at it. "That's not mine." He proceeded to turn the key in the ignition and plug something into his radio console.

Rapunzel shook it out- noticing a few sequins woven into the fabric- and began to fold it.

"You don't have to do that." Flynn snatched the scarf out of her hands and tossed it into the backseat. "I won't be seeing her again."

Rapunzel smiled in amusement as she remembered the woman who'd bumped into her running out of the Snuggly Duckling.

"Did your date- uh- ditch you?"

"Looks that way. Doesn't matter, though." He grinned at her before steering them into the street.

Rapunzel looked away quickly, surprised at the feeling in her stomach when he did that. But that was when she noticed the music.

"Hey, can you turn that up?"

Flynn reached for the dial. "You like it?"

"Yeah. I've never heard anything like it on the radio."

"That's because my music's too cool for the radio."

"_Your_ music?"

"Well- not mine. I just mean that I have exceptional, original taste."

"Oh." She smiled, listening to the music, looking out the windshield.

"You should lend me your mp3 player. I'll put some stuff on it."

"I don't have one."

"Oh. Shame."

"I just- it makes me want to dance!" Rapunzel ran a hand through her choppy hair, feeling overwhelmed and trapped in her seat.

"Easy, easy." Flynn pressed the buttons on his door to roll the car's windows down. "It's better to listen to some music like this-" he turned the volume up so that Rapunzel stopped feeling herself inhale and exhale, feeling only the highs and the lows of the music as they traveled through the body of the car and into her own. The air rushed in and ruffled her hair; she stuck her hand out of the window to feel the way her fingers cut through the night outside; the songs bled into one another.

When Flynn pulled the car into an empty spot on the street, Rapunzel's shoulders tensed up; she hadn't even realized they'd been relaxed.

Flynn had driven them to a part of Corona she'd never been to before. The place he led her to was small and dimly-lit by a fork-adorned chandelier.

When the waitress came to their table Rapunzel was so engrossed in the menu that Flynn just asked the woman to double his order of water and a beer.

"I've never had a lot of this stuff."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Like 'corn cup borunda.' What's that?"

"I don't know, actually. You should ask the waitress when she comes back."

"Okay. What are you getting?"

Flynn took a sip of his beer. "Probably just a burger or something."

"_Burger_. That's like a hamburger, right?"

Flynn narrowed his eyes at her, and Rapunzel wondered if she'd crossed the line she had to make an effort to steer clear of whenever she had a conversation with someone.

"I don't mean to pry," he folded his hands on the table in front of him, "but you don't get out a lot, do you?"

She sighed. "No. Not very much."

Flynn clapped his hands together. "Well! Do you want a burger?"

"Oh, I don't know. They're made from cows, right?"

"Uh, the beef part is. Why? You don't eat meat?"

"I've just never tried any before."

"Really?"

She nodded.

"Then you've _got_ to have a hamburger- they're stupendous, I assure you."

Rapunzel was mostly occupied with examining the drink and dessert menu while they waited for their food; she occasionally peered around at the decor; and she hesitantly touched the napkin folded on the table after Flynn spread his across his lap. She tried not to pay too much attention to what Flynn was doing, though she noticed he was making good progress on his drink.

"Aren't you going to drink that?"

"Oh." She picked up the glass- which she felt was ridiculously tall- with one hand, the same way Flynn was doing it, and tipped it to her mouth.

She didn't know what to expect, but she never imagined getting what she got. The bubbles fizzed at her throat and went into her nose as she coughed, and it was _bitter_.

"Whoa, whoa, you okay?"

"That's disgusting!" She started taking gulps of her water to beat down the aftertaste.

"Sorry. I thought girls liked lagers."

"Lager?"

"Yeah, you know, the kind of- wait." He pointed his index finger at her. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"_Jesus_, why didn't you say so?"

"How old did you think I was?"

"I guess I hadn't really considered it. _At least_ eighteen." He pulled the pilsner glass to his side of the table. "I shouldn't have ordered you that. Do you want a soda or something?"

She shook her head, still sipping her water through a straw.

"Why did you even drink it?"

"I didn't-"

"Never mind. If anything it's the waitress's fault; she should've carded you."

Rapunzel stared.

"I mean, I realize I'm distracting to the point of making someone forget how to do their job, but I think this is kind of serious."

Rapunzel stared.

"Not that you shouldn't take advantage." He pushed the glass back to her. "I guess it _was_ her mistake."

"No, I don't want it."

Flynn pulled it back to his side, drained the little bit left in his own glass, and started on hers. "Waste not, want not." He made a show of smacking his lips.

"How can you drink that?"

"I guess it's an acquired taste. Then again, you don't really drink it for the flavor."

"Why do you drink it?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Because there's alcohol in it."

She bit her lip, thinking about how to phase her next question, narrowing her eyes at the glass. "Like wine?"

"Sure, like wine."

Rapunzel opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by the plate that descended in front of her. The waitress turned to Flynn and set his plate down in front of him a little more deliberately.

"Can I bring you guys anything else?"

"What do you think, Rapunzel? Mustard? Hot sauce?"

"Uhh..."

"Can you just bring us a bottle of everything? Then she can take her time."

The waitress lined the bottles up on the edge of the table, and Rapunzel took to examining the labels. Flynn delved straight into his burger, using both hands to maneuver it to his face.

"You like that stuff?"

Rapunzel was holding a bottle of red liquid labeled "Tapatio".

"Hmm? I'm not sure."

"Aren't you going to try your burger? I feel funny eating all alone."

Rapunzel picked it up with both hands, again imitating the way Flynn was holding his. They both bit into the burgers at the same time. Whereas Flynn chewed, swallowed, and took another bite, Rapunzel continued to mash at hers with her teeth.

"What's wrong?"

Rapunzel just shook her head. She swallowed thickly, then took another bite, watching Flynn as he chewed so that she could keep pace with him. He stopped about halfway through the burger to drink some of his beer and pick at his fries.

"So, Rapunzel- how's your first burger?"

Rapunzel swallowed the food she had in her mouth and looked down at what was left of it in her hands. "I-" she could feel a sheen of sweat burst from her forehead "-I-" she felt hot, and there was too much saliva in her mouth "I have to go."

She stood up quickly- hearing plates jostle- found the _Restrooms!_ sign, and went for it at what she was sure was an undignified pace.

Afterwards, she looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn't sure if it was the fluorescent lighting that brought the dark circles under her eyes out, or made the freckles across her nose look so pronounced. What bothered her more was the fact that she didn't want Flynn to see her that way. The girls at work applied lipstick, eye shadow, and various other fixings before and during their shifts. They never asked her why she didn't do the same, but she found herself now wondering whether some extra color on her lips or her eyes would make her feel better when she had to go back out and face Flynn at the table.  
>She did all she could: splashed water on her face, and rinsed her mouth out.<p>

She didn't look at Flynn from the moment she left the restroom to the second she took her seat.

"Burger gone?"

"Gone." Looking up, she saw that he was tilting his head at her. "Sorry."

"Don't be." He reached across the table and took the remains of her burger right off her plate. "I mean, it's too bad." He lifted his own plate, tilted it over hers, and pushed all of his fries over the edge. "But it's not your fault that it didn't agree with you. Go on, now." He gestured at her full plate of fries.

Even though Flynn suggested she eat them with ketchup, Rapunzel decided she liked them better with mustard.

He stopped eating before he was done with his food, and sat back in his chair. "Those fries good?"

Rapunzel nodded. "Are they really a French food?"

"I don't know much about French cuisine, but I don't think so."

"Weird."

"Look- I've been trying to keep my thoughts to myself, but you're not making it easy."

Rapunzel looked up from her plate.

"You wandered into a _bar_, but you don't even know what to order in a regular restaurant. And you can't even keep a burger down-"

"I said I'd never had one before." Rapunzel found herself gripping the edge of the table against the flailing gestures Flynn had started making with his hands.

"And who's never had a goddamn burger before?"

"Me!"

The few people around them went quiet and openly stared. Rapunzel looked down at her hands on the table, seeing her fingernails go white with pressure, trying to keep from clenching her jaw. _The door's just over there. I can leave if I want to_.

"Hey." Flynn was sitting back in his chair again. "Sorry. I didn't mean to freak out."

Rapunzel stared.

"It's just that you came out of nowhere and stopped me from getting a major ass-kicking. And possibly arrested. Where did that come from?"

"I have no idea." She took a sip of water.

"No?"

She shook her head.

"So you're just some sheltered, meek, vegetarian... hero?"

"You put everything so strangely."

"I'm just calling it like I see it." He nodded.

There was a pause; Rapunzel watched a smirk creep into his face while she tried to decide just what she should say to him. _Tell him? Maybe just a little_.

"First of all, 'sheltered' implies that I've been protected from something; let's just call me... experientially disadvantaged-"

"Experientially-"

"Yes. And I don't know why people keep calling me a vegetarian. It's not like I _choose_ to not eat animals- I just _don't_. And I'm not a _hero_. I don't go looking around for you to see if you're in danger of being pummeled or anything- you just keep ending up wherever I happen to be."

Flynn was grinning, arms folded across his chest. Rapunzel took a breath- deeper than she realized she'd needed.

"Which I think I've been too polite about."

"You have?"

"Yeah. I'm always trying to maintain... boundaries. You know, the ones you don't cross by... asking certain questions or saying certain things? I thought that I shouldn't ask who those guys in the truck were or what you were doing trying to steal someone's wallet- I didn't think it was my business. But don't you think you owe me-"

"Whoa, whoa- I _do_ owe you. Hence dinner. If what you really wanted was for me to talk you should have said so earlier."  
>Rapunzel was aware that her mouth was slightly ajar- but between that and trying to think of a way to counter him, nothing got done. She crossed her arms and huffed.<p>

"I don't much like sweets- bad for the figure, you know- but we should have dessert. Ma'am? Ma'am? We'd like a slice of cheesecake- two forks, please. You ever had cheesecake before, Goldie? Sorry, I forgot- do you eat cheese?"

"Stop it." She'd crossed her arms across her chest already, but now she held on tightly. The last time she was this angry she'd run; but now all she felt like doing was staying put- staying solid.

The cheesecake arrived, and was set down in the middle of the table. Flynn held out a fork, but Rapunzel ignored him.

"Try the cheesecake, and I'll give you as much as you gave me."

She took the fork.

"The men you _so kindly_ hid me from are Matt and Mark Stabbington. They don't like me."

"Oh, wow!"

"Huh?"

"Sorry- this is just really good."

"Ah."

"So go on."

"And I was trying to steal the bar owner's wallet."

"Why?"

"Ah ah- I think I've already said enough."

"You hardly told me anything I didn't already know."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Ah, fine. I have this, shall we say, worldview- which isn't very popular- in which everything is something to be taken."  
>"What do you mean?"<p>

"I mean that... possession of something depends on who happens to be holding it."

"Well that seems-"

"I know, I know. It's not very popular. But it's just how I feel. I can't explain it any better than that."

Rapunzel thought for a few moments while she turned over a bit of the cheesecake's crust in her mouth. She thought about what she wanted to know, and about the lines she'd learned not to cross in conversation. She thought about the way he was still looking at her, and how he had just admitted to her that he was by and by a thief.

"Hey- didn't you mean for us to share this? Have some." Afraid to see what expression his face made, she feigned interest in cutting off another piece for herself. It gave her a prime view of his fork, which he maneuvered to take a piece next to where she was cutting hers from.

They walked to where he'd parked the car on the street, rather farther than she remembered it being.

"So you said that you never heard music like mine-uh- like the kind you heard in my car."

Rapunzel rolled her eyes, understanding the expression for the first time. "Yeah."

"What kind of music do you usually listen to?"

"Oh, whatever's on the radio." She grasped the strap of her bag. "I change it when I feel like listening to something else. Sometimes it's not music it all. Did you know that there are radio stations that just play news and people talking about _stuff_?"

"Yeah, but it's not exactly my thing."

"What type is your kind of music?"

"Uh, I'm not too sure." Rapunzel looked up to watch him squint and scratch the back of his head. "I think it's hard to put a label on certain kinds of music these days. I'll call it one thing, but someone else will call it another. Oh- here we are."

Rapunzel scurried the sidewalk and over to the passenger door. When she met him inside, she was careful to watch him set the music up; she paid attention to the cord he fiddled around with and the buttons he pushed on his mp3 player. "Put on something else this time. I want to hear more of _Flynn's music_."

He laughed lightly. "Sure thing."

He turned the volume up and rolled the windows down for her again. The sound itself and the views of the city she was unfamiliar with were enough to distract her; she knew Flynn was there, but felt no compulsion- _unrequired_- to speak to him.

The music disappeared.

"Sorry. I, uh, don't want to drop you off at the Snuggly Duckling. You want to give me directions to your place?"

"Uh..."

"At least the street?"

"Oh- Pescador."

Flynn found his way to Pescador, and she had him stop in front of her building.

She turned to thank him for dinner, her hand already on the door, and saw him holding something out to her: a set of keys- her keys.

"I took them from you." He was holding them by the ring they were attached to; they wavered slightly when he spoke. "I was just going to drop them back into your bag but- but I thought you should know." He averted his eyes from hers.

She took the keys without touching his hand. "Anything else?"

Flynn shook his head.

"Okay. Thanks for dinner." She slipped from the car and into her building before he had driven away.

The apartment was stuffy, but at least the neighbors seemed to be asleep. She paced a bit- too much going on inside to allow her to be still- before coming up short with a sudden realization. Rapunzel knew exactly what she needed: to talk, to share, to wonder. She knew exactly who she wanted, and felt his absence with a heavier sense of reality than she'd yet experienced since losing him. She put her energy to paper. It wasn't difficult to shape his ridges, scales, and beady eyes from memory. _Pascal_.

**AN:** And here we are. I know the place this story has to eventually end up in, but I initially though it would only take three chapters. That's not happening… so… I hope you can stick with me.

Also, thank you to everyone who put me or this story on a favorite/author alert list. Getting those notifications in my email makes me feel like… bursting. So thanks. Also, thanks to **Liliththestormgoddes**, **adrilabelle**, **comealongpond**, and **unwittingcatalyst**—my lovely reviewers. Thank you for your praise and suggestions.

4/12/12


	4. Every Disaster Needs A Remedy

Every Disaster Needs A Remedy

The afternoon sun was warming early, and Rapunzel basked in it at a table on the sidewalk on her lunch break. She took in the last of her tea from the ceramic mug she'd brought outside. In tipping it high, she replaced her view of the street and the sidewalk with the off-white bottom of the mug; bringing it down, Flynn was revealed by degrees standing over her. She was surprised, but not startled.

"Hey." He took off his sunglasses. "I haven't seen you around for a few days."

"Here?"

"Yeah. I've been by- well, a few times."

"Oh. Well I'm here every morning, pretty much."

"Define morning."

"Uh, before noon."

"Touché." He took the seat across from hers, dragging the heavy metal chair against the pavement with a screech. "I usually come by after I happen to wake up- and that's morning."

"Don't you work?"

"Sure. Say, what's that you're reading?"

Rapunzel looked at the heap of gray paper on the table. "The newspaper. Did you want it? I'm done with it."

"Nah, I've got a book." He patted the brown bag that hung across his chest.

"I've been reading a lot of books, but I still like to read the newspaper."

"I guess if I want news, they're just other places I can get it."

"Yeah, but- there's just something _about_ newspapers. I don't think anyone realizes what a gift they are. I mean, they come out every day without fail, they're so easy to get, and you know so much more when you're finished with them than you did when you began."

Flynn was looking at her. "I've never heard anyone talk about newspapers that way."

"Probably because you've never spoken to anyone who knows what it's like to not have them."

"Rapunzel?" It was Melina, poking her head out the front door. "Rebecca wants to know if you can clock back in- we just got a big phone-in order."

"Okay, I'm coming." She looked at Flynn. "I've got to go."

"That's alright, I'm coming in to make some more work for you anyway."

Rapunzel tossed her newspaper in a rack on the cafe floor- in case anyone else wanted to read it- and went to the back room for her apron. Stephanie the cashier was sitting on the manager's desk, head in her hands, sobbing.

"Steph- are you alright?"

"Uh-uh." She took a great, shuddering breath. "No. I just found out that Mikey cheated on me- through a text!"

"Oh- uh- I'm sorry." Rapunzel felt that maybe she should try to hug her, but something nagged at her. "What do you mean he 'cheated on you'?"

"I mean that while he was supposed to be with me, he slept with another girl." The last part came out as a wail.  
>'Be with,' 'slept with'- Rapunzel had a vague understanding of these phrases, mostly informed by things she'd read in books and in newspapers. Vague as it was, she was sure enough about the meaning of the situation to wish she hadn't stumbled across it; she had no idea what she was expected to say at such a time. She was thinking it would be best if she just patted her on the top of the head when Rebecca burst in through the swinging door.<p>

"Outside, both of you, now."

Rapunzel scuttled around her, tying her apron up at the small of her back even as she walked. Outside, the source of Rebecca's mania was revealed: a line of paper cups, all marked and named in black ink, standing next to the espresso machine.  
>Melina stood at the cash register, counting out an old lady's change. "Rapunzel, could you please-" she jerked her head at the cups.<p>

Rapunzel scanned the few heads in the cafe, finding Flynn over by the display of cups for sale.

Rebecca came charging through the swinging door, a puffy-eyed Stephanie not far behind.  
>"Stephanie- rinse her pitchers- clean her counter." Rebecca issued the order as she started preparing cup-holders and napkins.<p>

"Hi, Flynn."

Rapunzel looked up to see Flynn lean on the counter by his hands in front of Melina. She looked back down to the mixture of espresso and syrup in the cup in front of her.

"Arms up." Stephanie slid a wet rag across the counter in front of Rapunzel.

"Is it morning for you?"

"You know me too well."

"The usual, then?"

"Yep. Especially if Goldie's making it."

"Goldie? Oh, you mean Rapunzel. Why Goldie?"

Rapunzel looked up from her work again, just long enough to see Flynn shrug.

"Suits her."

Rapunzel heard Stephanie clanking from behind her, coming with clean pitchers for her.

"Here's your change, Flynn."

"Thank you, ma'am. Hey, you okay?"

Stephanie stood at the counter next to Rapunzel. "I've heard enough from douchebag men today- leave me alone."

"Whoa."

"_Stephanie_."

Rapunzel kept her hands moving over the half-made drinks in front of her, but saw Flynn put both his hands up and back away.

"I can't _believe_ you said that to a customer- and a regular, at that." Rebecca sounded livid.

Stephanie hadn't moved from her spot next to Rapunzel. "Why? It's probably true; you can tell just by looking at him. He's got to be some kind of man-whore."  
>"Be that as it may, it's inexcusable- we're talking consequences later. Go get Rapunzel more whipped cream. And Rapunzel- you're about to spill milk <em>all<em> over the counter."

Rapunzel jerked the pitcher up before it could happen. "Sorry!" She maneuvered the cups from one side of her to the next until the cup that read _Flynn_ was finally next up. As she poured hot water into the cup he drifted into the corner of her eye.

Rebecca was speaking to him before she even had a chance to look up. "I'm so sorry about Stephanie- she's having a rough day."

"Hey, no harm, no foul."

With the tips of her fingers she snapped a lid on the top of the cup. She reached out with her arm to where Flynn was standing at the counter- "Here you go." - already raising his hand to take his drink from her. As it passed between them the side of her index finger brushed against some part of his hand. It was startling; it didn't feel like a brush of someone else's skin had ever made her feel; it wasn't distinctly rough or smooth, she couldn't feel whether he was especially hot or cold, and she wasn't even sure what part of his hand she'd inadvertently touched- but her breath caught and her insides clenched.

It happened so quickly, though. She averted her eyes instantly, and wouldn't even have a moment to wonder how- or whether- Flynn had reacted until she was on the bus home.

"Oh, hey-"

-She looked back to see him digging for something in his bag-

"-it's a good thing I saw you today. Here." Flynn held out a smallish paper square, which she took from him with both hands. "I don't remember the last time I made one of those, but you said you didn't have an mp3 player, so..."

Rapunzel found that the paper was folded to open linke an envelope; from it she pulled a silver disc- _a CD_- with writing on one side that read _Flynn's Music_.

"Not all of it, of course, just a few selected traks-"

"_Thank_ you."

"Hey, it's nothing." He picked his cup back up from the counter. "I'll see you around, Goldie."

Rapunzel replaced the CD in its paper wrapping without looking at, instead watching Flynn as he took a seat at the farthest end of the cafe.

Rebecca was busy passing off the handful of cupholders to the man and woman who had arrived for them, but Melina wasn't. She crashed into Rapunzel's side, locking onto her arm with her fingers.

She said in a voice that was somehow at once shrill _and_ quiet, "Rapunzel, what _was_ that?"

"Uh... Flynn made me a CD?"

"I know that- what _for_?"

"Oh, I heard some music in his car I liked- I guess some of it's on here?"

"And what were you doing in his car?"

"He took me to get dinner."

"You went out with him?" She keened, no longer keeping her voice down. "What happened? Did you guys do it? Was he awesome?"

"_What_? No- all we did was eat. He bought me dinner then took me home."

"Huh?" Melina loosened her grip on Rapunzel's arm. "I don't know if I'd call that a date with Flynn Rider. I mean, my friend said her sister-"

"Of course it wasn't a date! No no no no no. Flynn just owed me a favor and I told him to get me food."

"And a mix CD?"

"Uh, no."

"Well that was nice of him then."

Rapunzel nodded as she looked down at the folded paper envelope in her hands, unsure of where Melina was going with all her questions.

"You watch yourself, Rapunzel!"

"Huh?"

"Flynn's a real whore, just like Stephanie said. Yes, he's hot. And yes, he's being nice. Just don't- Rapunzel you're so _nice_- don't let him take advantage of you."

Even though she didn't own any CDs to play on her radio, she knew how to operate them from her time in the hospital. So instead of turning her radio's dial to a random station that evening she played Flynn's mix CD.

The opening notes of the first track were distinct, and they thrummed on a memory: she was pretty sure- _pretty_ sure- that it was the first song she'd heard in Flynn's car. Her radio's speakers sounded a bit hollow and tinny so she turned the volume up, remembering what Flynn had said about some music being better when played loudly.

She noticed as she pulled together some food for herself that it drowned out her neighbors' conversation next door. Could they now hear her music while they argued? Would they like it as much as she did?

Rapunzel ate her way through two tracks she was fairly certain she'd heard in Flynn's car. As she slipped into a new sketch of Pascal she noticed that she'd not heard the ones that followed before. Though she enjoyed them all, finding some quality in each to appreciate as her pencil slid across and carved into her notebook, she liked some more than others.

_How did I ever do without this?_

I never meant to let you go  
>And tomorrow<br>I'll regret it again.

_How is it that a song can take the words right out of your mouth?_

_Pascal._

To draw him was to hold him, to sit with him again; to shade his body was to watch him change to match some flowers, or a blanket; and to look at her own renderings of him was to realize over and over what she'd lost- what she'd left behind.  
>The thought of this particular drawing of Pascal falling into darkness and a closed page in her notebook made Rapunzel's chest tighten; she tore it out carefully by its perforated edge and set it atop the table. With her next paycheck, perhaps, she'd buy something to frame it in.<p>

It had happened several times before, and doctors had told her to steer her thoughts away from it, but she just couldn't while his likeness was right in front of her: she began to wonder about Pascal's fate.

_Did she ever find-_

One of her plates crashed from the counter to the floor, not five feet away from where she sat at the table. She turned to take in the strange mix of geometry that was now her plate. Though Rapunzel wasn't as startled this time as she'd been the first time something moved itself in her apartment, her shoulders tensed with the knowledge of the kind of night that would undoubtedly follow.

The apartment was quiet; she hadn't even noticed when the CD had ended. Had it played all the way through?

The light on the table next to her sofa sleeper was the only one in the apartment besides the one overhead, and it was duly turned on. The pieces of plate were left on the floor; Rapunzel felt she'd rather wait until there was some sunlight coming through the window befoe she saw to them. The CD was started over, and her blankets forgone as she retreated to her unopened sofa sleeper with her novel. She wasn't sure what a sensible person would do in such a situation, so she took her usual course of action: she distracted herself.

The first song on the CD brought her thoughts to Flynn this time. Melina was right: it was nice of him to make a CD for her. After all, she'd caught him in three compromising positions since meeting him only days before, and still he hadn't disassociated himself from her or the coffee shop. Was he just stupidly brazen? Or was he genuinely nice? She thought then about her keys, and how he'd aparently very easily lifted them from her bag. Maybe the CD was to make up for that misdeed. It couldn't be that Flynn was actually interested in her, could it? Melina hadn't seemed to think so; she'd called him a _whore_- she'd have to find that word in a dictionary, since her understanding of it was still a bit vague.

With that thought she turned to her book and picked her bookmark out. This one was about a few generations of women in Nova Scotia, and was highly recommended by the golden _O _sticker on the front. She willed her eyes to stay open and upon her book until it didn't matter because she couldn't tell one word from another anyway.

She was startled full awake- though by what she was unsure- just as deep orange sunlight was beginning to bleed into the room. The unease she'd tried to stave off the night before was still there; she tried to quell it with deep breaths even as she saw that her lights had been switched off and noticed that her radio was emitting in-between-station-static when it should have been idling on the last track of her CD.

_For all I know, lights and radios sometimes malfunction this way_. She told this to herself feebly. After all, she was unharmed. And both her drawing and the pieces of plate were exactly where she'd abandoned them before. The sunlight may not have been warm enough for her to feel, but its growing light began to relax her anyway.

Hadn't she always been like this? Jumpy, uncertain, self- contained at night, but confident and easy about herslef during the day?  
><em>Anyway- that's what <em>she _always said_.

* * *

><p>The call from work on Rapunzel's day off came early.<p>

"I know you don't usually work nights, but he's in the hospital and I've got to be there."

"Yeah, sure, I'll do it."

So she took the bus to the coffee shop later than she ever had before and walked in to find the guys of the night shift, most of whom she's only ever met in passing.

"Hey, Rapunzel." A man sat at the manager's desk in the back room counting down a cash drawer. "Thanks for coming in."

"Oh, sure..." Rapunzel hung up her bag and tied her apron, trying to reign in the man's name; all she found familiar about him were the few inches of short-ish curly hair in a ponytail at the base of his neck.

"It's Bastion." He smiled up at her from the chair. "We only met once, when you barely started."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, I've met so many people here."

"No problem." He brushed his wiley bangs over his forehead. "So, what are we going to have you do tonight?"

"Well, I'm not supposed to use the cash registers-"

"Rebecca told me about that, don't worry. I just feel bad about asking you to do the mopping and the dishes."

"But that's what I do every day..."

Bastion regarded her, stroking the facial hair at his chin.

"...pretty much."

"Okay, as long as you don't mind." He stood up, the cash drawer in his arms. "But tell me when you're ready to take the trash out- I don't want you going outside alone, okay?"

"Okay."

Rapunzel readied the sweeping supplies and the mop water before leaving the back room. Customers came to and left the cafe alone or in pairs- nothing like the traffic of the mornings and afternoons. In fact the cafe was empty aside from a couple at a table against the back wall.

Even the floor had less about it to clean in the evening, and Rapunzel wondered why she had never been scheduled to work at night before.

"Hey, Rapunzel." It was Bastion; he was walking across the freshly-swept floor to her, a plastic cup in each hand. "We were experimenting with the teas- you want to try one?"

Rapunzel took a sip of her iced tea at the same time as Bastion. It was _very_ sweet, but she grinned as she swallowed anyway.

"What do you think? Does it need more coconut flavor?"

"Actually, I think it tastes nice just like that."

"Sweet." He took another sip. "So, how are the floors doing?"

"They're fine—I'll leave the back corner for last, though."

Bastion looked over her shoulder to the area and smirked. "How come?"

"I, uh, don't want to bother that couple back there."

He sniggered. "Nah, you won't. Get it done, then we'll go take out the trash, yeah?"

Bastion took Rapunzel's tea for her, leaving her to stack up chairs and push the broom around the floor while _straining_ not to look at the couple she was working around.

Their chairs were positioned so that they were facing a wall as they sat at their small table, so all she could really see that wasn't engulfed somehow by the girl's large, dark curls was a pair of backs. But it was difficult for her not to watch. She knew they were kissing; they weren't talking to each other. And it was something—this kiss—that she was frustratingly curious about; it seemed to be a ubiquitous occurrence, but there was precious little information about it. In the books she read, they were never more than 'tender,' 'deep,' 'light,' 'wet,' or simply 'a kiss.' There was never any description of the mechanics of the thing, which she desperately wanted enlightenment on. Problems nagged at her: why the tilting of heads?; what were the differences between 'tender' and 'wet'?; why the importance of lips, when every kiss she had ever received had been on top of the head, yet had also conveyed affection?; why did some people spend such a long time doing it? She had once had to resist watching pair of men kiss from the time she got on a bus until it reached her stop. And now these two seemed to be making an evening of it.

In what had nearly been a year, Rapunzel was becoming ever more sure that certain things- and this was probably one of those things- had to be _experienced_ to be understood. Knowing full well that no amount of spying from the corner of her eye would be appropriate and wanting to distance herself from this mystery of human relations as soon as possible, she swung the broom just past the chairs.

And she couldn't help that she snuck a look at them from as she guided the broom past; she wasn't even sure what she was looking for in the split- second glimpse she managed to get. Nothing was even gained in her knowledge of kissing- or making out, as it were- except the recognition of Flynn's face pulling away from the woman, eyes still closed, lips slightly parted.

There was not a break in her step, not a hitch in her gait. She steered herself and her broom to the back room, sure that her breathing was even and normal. The sudden tumult inside was hers alone. She felt a strange mixture of annoyance and anger, and an unfamiliar sensation (_emptiness? absence? bottomless-ness?_) in her stomach.

She suddenly remembered the abandoned scarf in Flynn's car and how its softness was interrupted by occasional sequins as she tried to fold it. She tried to remember Flynn's face as he flung it into the backseat, but couldn't; the only way she could picture it was as she'd just seen it. It made her cringe and want to push it away for more pleasant, less bothersome memories.

"Hey, you'll need my key for that." Bastion had found her by the back door.

She had her hand on it, and wasn't sure how long she'd been standing in front of it.

He leaned past her to turn the key attached to a set on his neck into the door. "Here we go."

Rapunzel lifted two black plastic bags and followed him outside to the dumpster. It was probably nearly collection day; she could smell it much sooner than usual. But, strangely, it was not nauseating.

They hoisted their trash bags into the dumpster without a word. On the way back to the building, though, Bastion slowed down to walk next to her.

"Are you always this quiet?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's hardly been a word out of you all evening."

"All evening? I haven't been here that long. And I've been _working_ the whole time."

"True."

They each picked up two more bags from inside the back door, Bastion trading one of his for the heavier one Rapunzel had shouldered.

"So- how long have you had short hair?"

"Huh?" Rapunzel shook the stray bits of it out of her face. "What makes you think it hasn't always been short?"

"I don't know. You do certain things... you clutch at it. I don't think people with short hair are really in the habit of touching it like that."

"How would you know? You're hair's _much_ longer than mine."

"But it hasn't always been."

They threw their garbage bags up into the dumpster and turned back to the building.

"About eight months."

"Hmm?"

"Since I cut my hair."

"Aaah. Do you like it short?"

"Sometimes."

"I think hair's one of those things no one's ever totally satisfied with."

"Hm."

"Well, anyway, it suits you."

"You think?"

"Totally." Bastion locked the door behind them. "So- are you working tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow afternoon."

"Nice. Should I let you off now, then? Since you have to be back so soon?"

Rapunzel shrugged her shoulders. "Is that normal?"

"If it's as dead as it is tonight. Go home."

After collecting her things from the back room, she hovered in front of the back room's swinging door for only a few seconds before deciding it was stupid of her to do so. What did she care if Flynn and that girl were still out there?

If there had been any way possible for her to avoid looking in the direction of their table on her way out, she would have done it just for her own satisfaction- but just before she opened the front door, Bastion called to her:

"Good night, Rapunzel."

She turned to wave her free hand at him and in doing so the table swung into her line of sight. It was empty.

* * *

><p>Truthfully, Rapunzel would rather have stayed at work for a few more hours than go to the quiet and solitude of her apartment. And given the hour of night her usual spots at the park or the library were out of the question. It was hard enough to focus on the last few pages in her book to the rise and fall of the bus's engine—and her inattention, she knew, was ruining the story's ending for her. Which made the whole situation all the more frustrating.<p>

She snapped the book shut and shoved it into her bag.

"What's wrong with me?" Her voice hadn't been loud enough for the few other people on board to hear, but she knew that if she wanted to carry on this way she'd have to be quiet about it; she'd seen the looks given to people who talked to themselves on buses.

_Stop freaking out, Rapunzel._

_People… kiss other people. And Flynn can kiss whoever he wants._

_He probably kisses a lot of girls._

_That's it! Thoughts that include both Flynn and kissing are off limits._

This would be difficult; thoughts of Flynn had been nice. As a rule, Rapunzel enjoyed looking at, watching, observing individuals. Men were especially fascinating to her, their overall gender, shapes, and manners being relatively novel. And Flynn fit this category—only especially so.

She could tell Flynn was handsome in the way that she could tell apart a generally attractive man from an unattractive one. There may have been a time past in which she would have filed him into one category or the other; but after hearing his voice, listening to him talk, and spending time simply _looking_ at him he had come to merit a category of his own. This was attraction, she knew; the feeling was mentioned in almost everything she read, usually described as a flip-flopping stomach or a sudden rush of blood to the head. It embarrassed her to feel the same sensations everyone else seemed to know about—even if she was only _thinking_ of him—as if she were transparent.

And even if she hadn't anticipated what attraction would lead to before, she would have known what it was once it came: attraction made you at once desire and fear closeness to another person.

Which was why it was startling—even if it wasn't exactly unexpected—to see Flynn so close to someone else. What she wanted to be given—even if she only realized it distantly, vaguely—was being given to someone else.

_What would you even do, Rapunzel? If you were in that girl's place—then what? Would you sit at a table with him all evening? So close?_

_Maybe._

"Gaah," as she sprung up out of her seat.

_Okay, Rapunzel. No Flynn. Flynn makes you nervous, Flynn kisses other girls and this upsets you. No Flynn._

She thought as she stepped off the bus that distracting herself would be a good way to set out on her Flynn-less thoughts. And in the darkness, as she walked up the sidewalk, rumbling bass from the Snuggly Duckling came into earshot.  
>It would almost be like re-setting herself before she became acquainted with him, if she could just go in and have a snack without having to keep him from getting beaten up.<p>

So she pulled open one of the double doors- it was grubby under her hand- and walked into the place. Even though it was dark outside, her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the lower lighting inside.

The last time she'd been there it was hard to move for all the people that were inside. This time, however, she had to look around to see if anyone was there at all. Most of the tables were empty of people, but not of half- filled, foggy-looking glasses; no one walked across the floor, though there were odd bits of refuse and cigarette butts here and there; there was no band up on the raised stage, the drum-heavy music seeming to come from large, overused speakers in the corners. The bar's occupants- Rapunzel saw at last, from a seat at the long, raised bar counter- were concentrated at a large, heavy-looking table against the wall opposite the bar counter. One of them- the bald one with the prosthetic hand- started walking toward her as she watched them.

"Hey, you came back." He walked behind the counter. "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to see a menu, please."

He ducked down below the counter and fumbled around for a few moments before emerging with a very battered, laminated paper menu. "Here you go. You want something to drink?"

"Uh, what do you have?"

"Well, we've got all this on tap, and the usual behind the bar, only don't expect me to get all fancy with the mixing-"

"Oh, no, I'm not old enough to drink."

He squinted his eyes at her. "You know, hon, if you're not old enough to have a drink, you're not supposed to be in a bar."

"Oh... I'm sorry." Rapunzel slid off her stool, embarrassed.

"No, no, come back. It's alright for today. We really should have someone carding anyway."

"Really?"

"Yeah, sit down, I'll get you a Coke."

"I think I'd like fried pickles, please."

"Fried pickles? You got it." He disappeared through a swinging door. Rapunzel heard him yell a few indistinct phrases before he returned. "They'll be out in a few. You waitin' on anyone else?"

Rapunzel shook her head.

"Not even that asshole you left with last time?" He pointed to the door, where a sketched likeness of Flynn hung alongside a few other faces.

"No—but how did you remember-?"

"Your little face," he pointed, "looks like a cat. A scared one."

"I'm not scared."

"And you kinda remind me of my sister's kid—same short hair. Most girls wear it long, see."

Rapunzel clutched at the choppy ends at the back of her head.

"Well I don't wanna leave a lady all by 'erself. Why don't you come 'n sit with me and my pals?"

"I, um—okay."

He pulled out a chair for her; he introduced himself as "Hook"; and gave the names of his "pals." In the course of her job, she got to learn several new names a day by writing them on paper cups, but she'd never heard any of these: Big Nose, Bruiser, Tor, Atilla, Killer. Gunter, Vladimir and Joe Mateo sounded conventional enough to her, however.

Rapunzel tried to follow the conversation they jumped back into as soon as she was seated but for the loud music that was still coming from one of the speakers and her lack of context, all she could discern was that Vladimir had entered into a dispute with a dealer over the price of some collectible figurine.

Hook left 20 minutes later and returned with Rapunzel's fried pickles, which she had by then forgotten about.

"What do you say we get a jam goin' in here?"

Rapunzel saw the faces of almost everyone go sour.

"Aw, come on, there's nothing better to do tonight."

Big Nose and Gunter stood up and slunk after Hook through a door against the back wall.

"So, Rapunzel," Vladimir was addressing her from across the table, "what's you story?"

"My story?" _Surely they don't want to hear _that_._

"Sure—what do you do, what do you like, what are your dreams?" He took a pull on his beer bottle.

Rapunzel bit her lip for a few seconds while she thought about how to answer—ho to be truthful, but not more revealing than she felt comfortable in being.

"Well, I work at a coffee place—it's really busy sometimes—"

"Ya mean you make all them fancy drinks and stuff?" Killer was squinting at her from a few seats away.

"Yes, I do a lot of that, and a lot of dishes and sweeping, too."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"Sometimes. But everyone tells me I'm really good at it. And once I get my high school equivalence certificate I'll be allowed to work on the cash registers, too."

"What—you can't count _now_?"

"Sure I can. I can do all sorts of math! I learned at home. I just don't have a certificate that says so."

"So you were homeschooled?" Vladimir was looking at her from under the hem of his beanie.

"Sort of."

The music on the speakers stopped and the three who had left came back through the door, carrying several black cases Rapunzel could only guess were luggage.

"So when you get this certificate what are you going to do?" Tor took a pickle from her basket. "Count money and live happily ever after?"

Hook was grunting something about a high-hat, but she tried not to listen, thinking about how to answer Tor.

"I hope not. See, when I left home I wanted to _see_ everything and do _everything_. I didn't realize it would be so hard."

"How you gonna do that? Travel? Go to school?"

"My social—uh—someone suggested that I should go to college."

"You'd like college," Gunter called from the stage, looking over his shoulder.

"How would you know?" Atilla turned in his seat to face him.

"Because I've been to college." He stood up, a guitar in his arms, and shrugged his shoulders. "Interior design."

"Yeah, well I went to culinary school!" Atilla was gripping the table with both hands and looking across at Rapunzel from under his hood. "These guys have never thought to ask how I learned to make such awesome cupcakes. You should got to school, Rapunzel—you'll make smarter friends than that shithead thief."

_Cupcakes? Interior Design?_ Rapunzel found herself smiling at these revelations.

"I had some college too, you know." Everyone turned to look at Hook. "Studied musical performance 'till my accident." He held up the prosthetic that had taken the place of his hand, and everyone looked down or away. "This is pro'ly the last place ya expected to hear this, Miss Rapunzel"—though everyone was pointedly drinking their beers, Rapunzel looked up to Hook as he addressed her, "but ya' should definitely go to school an' make a somebody of yerself—then go live yer dreams. Gunter, Big Nose! I'm ready to give a beat already—plug in!"

Rapunzel had expected Hook to beat at the drum set he was sitting behind with only one hand, so she was surprised that he was able to strike the cymbals after wedging a drumstick into the prongs of his prosthetic piece. He started off with a sort of rambling phrase—which only ended after Gunter yelled something Rapunzel couldn't make out—before settling into something Gunter and Big Nose could jump into on the guitar and the bass.

Perhaps because she still hadn't finished her coke, Killer brought her a glass of water when he came back from serving two men who had walked in. Over this, Rapunzel was quite happy to watch Hook and his friends alternate instruments and leads in their "jam"; after all, the only other time she'd witnessed people playing music in person—also the only other time she'd been in the Snuggly Duckling—she hadn't been able to take in the spectacle.

This music didn't make her want to dance, but she could understand how it could conceivably make a person want to move. Particularly interesting to her were the ways this manifested in the men on the stage: Gunter swayed back and forth; Big Nose closed his eyes and jerked his head every so often: and Rapunzel couldn't tell if Hook's whole body was moving because of the effort it took to make all the hits he wanted to or because of his enthusiasm.

She wasn't sure how long she listened to them play, but she was feeling sleepy by the time Hook suggested she head home.

"Nothin' good happens after ten. Ton of creeps out there." He stopped at the door while Rapunzel finished waving goodnight.

"It was wonderful to meet you all again. Thanks for everything."

"Don't mention it, girlie. But remember-" he placed his prosthetic over the door to keep her from opening it- "wait a few more years before you go walkin' into any other bars."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be. Remember: you're welcome here as long as you don't go around smashin' my glasses."

She smiled up at him as he opened up the door fo her, catching sight of the place's most recently vilified visitor.

Even though she'd come to the Snuggly Duckling with the purpose of getting Flynn off her mind, she ended up thinking about him on the walk home anyway. In the midst of these disturbing thoughts, the reason for the sketch's slight un-likeness to the real Flynn ocurred to her: his nose had been drawn far too long.

Note: Like I said, sorry for taking so long in posting this. It's mostly because I wrote this chapter partly in a notebook, and partly on a computer, so I had to consolidate them. And then the stuff, of course. I can't decide whether I feel like too much happened in this chapter, or not enough. But I hope it was fun to read.

Also, thanks to my fantastic, thoughtful reviewers of the previous chapter: Liliththestormgoddess, comealongpond, tinkfan14, James Birdsong, Romanian Princess, Tangledgirl, itsgoose2u, Desepere Romantique, and Beta Gyre. And to Eric, if he's still reading this and NOT JUDGING ME. And thanks for adding me to your author/story alert/favorite lists; I get an email notice when anyone does that, and I let out unbecoming sounds of happiness when I see them.

6/8/12


	5. Basic Space

Basic Space

_He's a thief_, the argument went. _A criminal._ _He's not a good person. As far as I know. And that's just it—I've eaten dinner with him and I don't know anything about him._

This was the argument—_No, it takes at least two to argue; there's only one of me_.—or, rather, the case Rapunzel was building against Flynn to keep from responding to his text message.

It had appeared in the night while she was sleeping. She'd woken because of a resounding boom, which—she dryly admitted to herself—could have come from the neighbors' or from inside her very own unit. Nothing had fallen or caught fire, so she meant to fall back asleep—but for the persistent blink of the light on her phone.

It was a text message, which she only ever received from coworkers wanting to switch or give away shifts. This one was from another number—one she didn't have listed as a contact—and it certainly wasn't from a coworker.

"Hey, you enjoying the CD?"

What nerve! He hadn't even _asked_ for her phone number! Those sorts of things were supposed to be confidential! Where had he gotten it? And what did he think he was doing, texting her on the morning of the first day she was going to not-think about him?

_I really like it._

_Wait!_

She hopped out her unfolded sofa-sleeper, energized by the indignance she felt. She might have been unnecessarily rough in folding the thing up.

It was cloudy outside but it wasn't raining yet. Deciding to head out early, she showered, dressed—noting that it might be high time to buy some shorts, given the summer weather—grabbed a banana, and turned her door's flimsy lock behind her.

Anything she'd ever seen on TV shows she watched when she was in the hospital told her that because Flynn was some sort of petty thief he was probably bad news and to be avoided. Plus, he had a woman, or a girlfriend, or whatever, so she should also be careful about what sort of contact she had with him. But he'd been nice to her before, and was seeking her out. A problem this complex was past her depth, she felt. While watching TV had been helpful—if sometimes misleading— in building her understanding of things, the one resource that had never failed her was the library.

* * *

><p>Flynn came to buy his coffee in the afternoon, looking a little bleary-eyed after he removed his sunglasses.<p>

Rapunzel wasn't surprised this time; even if she hadn't wanted to think about him, she had ammunition this time. She had defenses.

"Kleptomania!" She slapped the wet towel in her hand against the counter.

"What?"

"I looked it up. It's a sort of psychological disorder that makes a person steal. I think that's the reason you—"

"Whoa, whoa, keep it down, will ya?"

"Why?" Then—a brainwave: "Have you taken something from _here_ before?"

He looked over both his shoulders. "Oh my god."

"You just have _urges_ you're pathologically unable to control." She nodded; it felt good to see him worked up and uncomfortable. Like compensation for how she'd felt when she saw him the night before.

"Urgh, no, I don't."

"That's what kleptomania is."

Flynn moved his hand over his face to simultaneously clutch at his temples and cover his eyes. "I'm so not ready for this conversation. May I please have my usual?" He thrust a bill at Rapunzel, still covering his eyes.

"I can't take that—hold on." She saw only that Flynn's face had fallen as she turned to find someone who could charge him for his drink.

When she saw him again, maybe half an hour later, he was much more civil. He leaned over a slightly unfolded newspaper, and his ceramic mug was about half empty.

"Hey. Have you seen the paper today?"

Rapunzel turned away from the pile of dust, crumbs, and fingernails she'd been gathering onto a single square tile. "No; I haven't had my break yet."

"How long have you been here?"

"Since 5:30."

Flynn sucked in through his teeth.

"Why? Something important happen?"

"A lot of things, according to the paper."

"Uh… yeah." Rapunzel nodded, turning back to the bit of detritus at the end of her broom. How was she supposed to respond to something like that?

"Well, hey, where're you going?"

"I'm busy—" she gestured at the floor "—sweeping."

"You can't sit down for a minute?"

"I'm on the clock." Rapunzel looked back down to the task at her hands; the shapes his eyebrows were making as he spoke to her made her resolve to not speak to him seem distant and insubstantial.

"Don't you get a break?"

"Not today; we're shorthanded." Rapunzel smiled at the woman who walked through the door then, and waved her fingers at the little girl that followed close behind her, even as their feet came dangerously close to the last bit of dirt on the floor.

"Well then just tell me why you didn't answer my text the other night. Didn't you like the CD?"

"Tch. You messaged me in the middle of the night—I was tired from work."

"Tired?" I thought you'd see it when you _got up_ for work." Flynn ran a hand through his hair. "You know, because you keep early, ungodly hours?"

"Well I don't always. I was tired and you woke me up."

"So you saw my message—why didn't you answer?"

"I don't even know how you got my number."

"I got it here."

"We're not supposed to give out other people's personal information."

"I didn't say anyone gave it to me."

Rapunzel felt her face grow hot. "What'd you do? Sneak behind the counter while everyone was too busy to notice you?"

"They weren't busy at all; they just weren't paying attention."

A growl that Flynn either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge rose at the back of her throat.

"Yeah," Flynn continued, with the air of a storyteller, "they were huddled together talking about tea or something—"

_ Tea?_

"Did you get it last night? My number?"

"Yeah…."

A sense of victory washed over her, making her straighten before she crossed her arms to look down at him. "Well what did your girlfriend think of you sneaking around to get another girl's number while you were out with her?"

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Your date, then."

"What do you—"

"You know, the girl you were all wrapped up with last night."

Flynn's lips were parted as if he was about to speak. When he didn't Rapunzel took the opening to continue her assault.

"See, you were too busy, so I was able to do my sweeping around you two without disturbing you. But if you'd been paying attention, you could have just asked for my number in person. Of course, I don't know if that's appropriate to do on a date."

"Would you have given it to me?"

She inhaled and exhaled twice before answering: "No."

"No?"

"Nope. Why should I give you my number if I know there's another girl you—you've—got your hands full of?"

"What if my hands aren't full? Or what if I just want to be your friend?"

"It still seems like a mean thing to do in front of a girl you supposedly like enough to kiss—"

"What if I waited 'till she went to the powder room or something?"

"_Urgh_, it doesn't matter, Flynn, because that's not what happened. You probably did wait until she had to—to go reapply her lipstick or something, then you snuck around and took my phone number. I don't want to be friends with someone like that." Rapunzel regretted saying the last part as she watched Flynn's expression darken past the slightly amused one he'd been wearing while watching her talk. She breathed through her nose and watched him look at her.

"Look—I hadn't seen you around in a while, and I didn't know when I'd see you again and… and I just wanted to talk to you." His shoulders dropped a little once he finished speaking.

"Well you can't just take things just because you want them. Good people don't behave that way. At least, they shouldn't. And if you don't have some sort of mental illness then… what does that make you?"

For the remaining hour of her shift Rapunzel was careful to keep herself busy behind the counter so she wouldn't have to look at Flynn again. Especially toward the end of their conversation, she'd felt like she had the upper hand in her argument and in her words—a sort of victory she'd rarely felt before. And it had felt good; Flynn was in the wrong for taking her number, for taking it just because he wanted it, for trying to act charming and nice while she didn't feel like thinking about him, and for trussing up some girl right under her nose. And even if she hadn't given him all the specifics of her disapproval, she'd made him pay for them.

She continued to remind herself of that fact as the look of hurt confusion she'd drawn out of Flynn floated into focus on the surface of soapy dish water, and feelings of guilt began to override the anxiety she'd usually feel when staring down a long line of drink orders to fill.

An argumentative victory over Flynn seemed like a good step in the direction of not-thinking about him. So did making him look affronted; she'd not made anyone look at her with as much hurt and surprise in a long while, and she felt that—after all—she wanted to put it out of her mind.

Smug, smiling Flynn had been supplanted by a Flynn taken aback at her unexpected words, her unexpected stature, she knew it. And she couldn't stop thinking about that.

Even as she counted her tips and someone said her name behind her back, Rapunzel was still going over the words that had passed between her and Flynn. She turned around, though, to find Bastion taking his apron out of his bag.

"Huh?"

"I just said 'hi.' Sorry, did I make you lose count?"

"Oh—hi. No, I'm just double-checking it anyway." She folded up the group of bills and shoved them into the front pocket of her bag.

"That's good; you shouldn't trust anyone when it comes to money. I don't." He smiled.

Rapunzel looked away, unsure of how to respond. Was he being serious, or was he just making small talk? Before she could decide, he'd started up again.

"The morning wasn't too rough, was it?"

"No, not at all. I left my apartment a little early so I could go to the library on the way here—"

"Good god! What for?" He crossed his arms across his chest good-naturedly, and before she could respond: "I would have slept until the last possible second."

Rapunzel shrugged her shoulders. "I've always been a morning person."

"Clearly. And it's a shame; you set us up real nice last night. We left right on time—no extra work at all."

At his mention of the previous night she clenched her teeth. Not only did she remember the way Flynn's head was tilted and hidden away in the girl's hair, but she also imagined what Flynn must have looked like as he crept behind the counter to snatch up the employee directory while her coworkers obliviously discussed the bite of their tea only feet away.

When she got home that night she was all too thankful that the thrumming, sourceless energy that had driven her away so quickly in the morning had quieted. She cleared her thoughts in peace as she watched a pot of rice absorb the water around it, the apartment silent but for the hiss of the gas stovetop and the murmur of the occasional car on the street below.

Though silence was unusual for her in the apartment, it had seemed like the best option when she was faced with choosing between scanning radio stations—which she had little interest in at the time—or turning on the one CD she owned—which she really did feel like listening to.

The problem was not the music itself, but rather that it led back to Flynn. In wanting to not-think about him she had unintentionally made him a mainstay in her mind. Whereas she used to just listen to the music for the music itself, she knew that it would only make her thoughts reek of him now. She would remember the first time she'd heard on of the songs and felt like dancing even though she was strapped into the passenger seat of his car; she'd think about his handwriting in black on the plastic surface of the disc, spinning to a blur beneath the player's lid; she'd imagine the collection of songs the music had come from, and what Flynn might have considered while he chose the 11 particular tracks on the CD for her.

So no. Silence would do for the evening. And maybe for the next week of evenings.

* * *

><p>The quiet itself was a shame; it would have been nice to fall asleep to something after being woken up so late at night.<p>

Once she woke up stifling in the soupy heat of her blanket because her ceiling fan had stopped and her windows had closed. Leaving the windows open was a priority on nights as of late, as the single air conditioning vent in her apartment was controlled by her next-door neighbors—and they always turned the system off when they were out or when they went to sleep. At first she felt confused about the dampness of sweat across her forehead and back, then frustration at having forgotten to open her windows before turning in, and lastly distress upon distinctly remembering that she'd made sure that she didn't knock a bird askew as she turned the knob to make the panes rotate on their hinges.

The air about her—already thick in her nostrils as she inhaled tensely—grew denser, as if with noise too low to hear. She stared about the darkness of the room, able only to make out the squares of her windows and the streetlight that came in through them. Strangely, the glow wouldn't permeate the other spaces of the room; it was the mass of darkness, untouched by the light from without that made her hesitant to jump off of her sofa sleeper.

She felt prohibited, rather than incapable, and it reminded her of ways in which she'd already promised she'd never allow herself to be treated again.

Blocking everything in her peripheral vision out, she made it from where she sat on her fold-out mattress to the low window pane in two huge steps. Opening the window was like shooting above water's surface for a gulp of air; not only could Rapunzel feel a balmy breeze coming into her stagnant apartment as it passed around her sweaty body, but she could also see into the shadowy nooks of the room that had only moments earlier been solid blackness. Even while the image was still vivid in her memory, she knew that opening the other window, turning on the light and ceiling fan, and washing the perspiration from her would make it easier to make herself believe that it had seemed so thick and oppressive because she had only been half awake.

And while turning on the radio would have made sunrise come all the more quickly, she continued her forced ban of music playing and thereby Flynn-thinking.

_Maybe I need a TV._

* * *

><p>Flynn had gone before Rapunzel even realized it. It was Melina, a girl she often morning-shifted with, who noticed it first.<p>

"Where's that Flynn guy been?" She leaned against the counter, next to where Rapunzel was sanitizing the inside of a refrigerator on her knees.

"What? How should I know?"

"I thought you guys had buddied up or something."

Rapunzel looked up; Melina had her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. Or was that just because she was looking down at her? "No. Nothing like that." She leaned back into the refrigerator to tackle the crusted- on milk on its floor. "I guess he's kind of a jerk, you know? I mean, you're the one who—"

"Jerk? What did he do to you?"

"Oh—nothing. I just get that impression from him."

"Did you say something to him?"  
>"Like what?"<p>

"Like, to leave you alone, or to not come around here anymore?"

"No! I mean, do I even have the authority to tell someone that?"

Rapunzel looked up to see Melina shrug.

"I just haven't seen him come in for a while."

"How long?"

"Maybe a week. Maybe more. I don't know—mornings all kind of melt together after a while."

"Huh." Rapunzel leaned back onto her ankles so she could spray her noxious cleaning solution inside the refrigerator. "Well that doesn't mean he's not a customer anymore. He keeps weird hours; he might just be coming in later."

"That's right. Even the night people know who he is, so he must come in then too."

"Yep."

"Well, I was just wondering, I guess. Did you ever listen to that CD he made you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Was it any good?"

"Yeah. It really was."

_ Urgh._

* * *

><p>TVs were expensive. But Rapunzel decided not to let it bother her. She remembered the strong fixation it had awoken in her when she'd had one to watch in the hospital, and how she wouldn't do much else while it was on.<p>

By comparison, paint was cheaper.

Overwhelmed at a big arts and crafts store, a boy with funny glasses and funny-smelling breath helped her choose a few brushes and some paints that were nice, but not too nice: within her budget. He even gave her a coupon to use when she came back.

The paints she had purchased weren't exactly like the ones she used to make herself, but the colors were already mixed, and they had their own plastic storage bottles, which were much more convenient than the little clay pots she'd had before.

She was nervous about how they'd dry on the paper, since the kind she was using wasn't very good, and because she didn't want to risk ruining the drawing of Pascal she meant to color in. And in the end, it probably wasn't the paint that made the picture end up less perfect than she'd hoped; it was the flimsy, lined notebook paper she'd put him on in the first place that was too weak to hold the paint. It turned wavy so that in some places the paint collected in pools before drying, making the colors and shapes look altogether different.

There was already a bit of affection, though—and Rapunzel knew it was unreasonable, and probably pretty sad—for that proxy Pascal that kept her from trashing it and starting over again with better paper. She flattened it against the plastic of a cheap picture frame she'd bought for it, deciding that the cracks and unevenness in the color made the thing unique, just like her friend had been.

* * *

><p>It was okay that she hadn't seen Flynn around the café in a while. Rapunzel wasn't going to complain about having to find excuses to run to the back room, or about feeling bad when she outright ignored him. But it made his reappearance even more startling.<p>

"Hey, I made you another one."

"What?"

"Another mix." He held out a square of paper just like the first CD he'd made for her had been wrapped in. Looking inside, she found that this one had written in the same black handwriting that was on the last disc, _Let's Be Friends_.

"Why are you doing this?"

Flynn's smile faltered and turned neutral; his hands moved from their confident spot at his hips to cross over his chest. "Because I want to be your friend."

"But why?"

"Why not?" He sighed. "I've told you I think you're a nice person; I like talking to you when I have the chance; and haven't—haven't you ever just wanted to know someone?"

Flynn looked down, and Rapunzel got the feeling that he was embarrassed by what he'd just said. She was a little embarrassed too.

"Look, you think that I'm depraved or something, and I guess that's my fault. I never pretended to be a regular guy."

"I don't think you're _depraved_. I know you do things you shouldn't, though, and I think it's just because you can't help it."

"I _can_ help it."

"That doesn't really help your case, you know."

"Good point. But if you talk to me, maybe you can figure me out."

"What makes you think I want to?"

"Rapunzel, I'm not—_bad_."

He looked serious, but not angry. Maybe a little desperate, though.

"Your girlfriend doesn't mind you hanging out with other girls? Who are also friends?"

"I told you I don't have a girlfriend."

"Hm." Rapunzel looked down at the covered- up disc in her hand. "Thanks. I'll listen to it later."

"And tell me what you think of it?" His face brightened a little.

"I will."

"Okay…." He uncrossed his arms and rubbed his hands together, then grinned tightly. "Then I'll see you later, Rapunzel."

He left then, and she didn't watch him walk out. She counted the envelope of dollar bills on the counter in front of her, inhaling on even numbers, exhaling on the odds.

It really couldn't be helped, she reasoned as she barreled home on the bench of a bus, if she liked him despite the evidence against him. _Soundrel_. God, she liked that word; even if Flynn was one, did that mean he was an all- around bad guy? Maybe not; he'd been especially nice to her when she was at work; and he'd given her more music, which she was feeling more and more excited about the closer she came to her apartment.

The CD, once it was playing in her radio, revealed itself to be made of all sorts of music she'd never heard before. It played through the afternoon and into the dim sunlight of the summer evening, when she felt acutely thankful to have noise about the place again. It was only as the light drained completely from the sky that she grew weary of what repercussions her change of heart might engender.

Some of her work was on the table, drying on some nice paper she'd bought while she propped herself over a large sheet on the floor. For the first time, she'd started painting without making lines first, and she thought it showed. Around this time a thrum of disapproval began to fill the apartment like a heartbeat.

_ But I feel good. Why does this have to happen now?_

The music played on, she continued to dab and brush at the paper before her, and the vibration in the very air around her was on the verge of making actual sound.

_ No._

Her determination took care of itself, encouraging anger alongside it so that Rapunzel's more noble skills could be used on her craft. As long as she focused on the colors—the way they mixed faintly and messily in certain places—and the songs as they repeated themselves, she was in control.

Control like this used to be more difficult to channel—more difficult to control, too. Now she had narrowed it down to a combination of desire, determination, and distraction.

Even as the thing moved around like ink in her peripheral vision, she paid it no mind. It might be terrifying in and of itself—but could only make her hunch and shiver as much as she let it.

* * *

><p><strong>Note:<strong> Hey, if you're readings this after the unexpected eight-month hiatus, I apologize, and thank you profusely for coming back. I wrote some other things in the interim, but never stopped dwelling on this. So, essentially, this chapter took about eight months to write. Yuck. But the next chapter's already written and will be up the day after tomorrow.

Also, I hate this story's name. I don't know what I was thinking. I cringe every time I look at it or write it down.

Anyway, thanks for reading. 2/9/13


	6. A Flood of Blood to the Heart

A Flood of Blood to the Heart

Though Rapunzel had seen Flynn embarrassed and confused before, she just couldn't imagine him being timid—try as she might—when she read his text.

"How's it going, Goldie?"

She thought she'd been cold and stern enough when they'd last spoken at the café to warrant some easy handling from him. But no—he'd barely given her 24 hours to have the upper-hand; 24 hours to mull over the music he'd given her and the fact that they were going to be friends.

And he was using that nickname.

"Don't call me that." She was careful to add the apostrophe, as she always was when writing text messages.

"Why" _No punctuation!_ Was that even allowed?

"Because it's not my name." And she had a peculiar dislike of it, the origin of which she couldn't quite put her finger on. In a separate message, before he could respond: "My name's Rapunzel."

"Yes, we've met."

Why did he do that? Why did he have to make things difficult?

Rapunzel—her reading interrupted by the buzz of her phone inside her bag—put her elbows on the surface of the desk in the library carrel she'd been occupying for the better part of the afternoon. People at work had said before that they preferred texting to speaking in person or on their phones, but Rapunzel could not say she agreed; she found conversation made more sense when exchanges were made one right after the other. While she waited to see if Flynn would send another message, her brain got all jumbled and anxious. What was he going to say next? Was it going to be just as frustrating?

"Did you read the paper the other day?"

"The one you were reading?"

"Y."

_Does that mean yes? That probably means yes. Why can't he just type it all out?_ "Not the whole thing. Why?"

"Was hoping you saw the article about the Crown."

"I didn't. What is it?"

Her phone began a prolonged buzzing in her hand. He was calling her. Why was he calling her now? There was chatter filtering through the stacks from a chess club meeting, but she couldn't see her talking on the phone among the carrels being received the same way. She snatched up her things and scrambled to the bathroom, hitting the green "Accept" button before she got there so he wouldn't be sent to her voicemail.

"Hello?"

"Hey! You didn't read about the Crown?"

"No."

"Okay. Promise me you won't try to find it."

She pictured the periodical section on the floor below her. She could probably find the other day's issue of the _Corona Sun-Times_ without even having to ask for help. "Why?"

"It's got to do with a surprise, so just promise."

"A surprise?" She couldn't help but sound doubtful.

"Uh, yeah. And if you find that newspaper article you're going to ruin it."

Rapunzel bit her lip.

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"Well?"

"Yes, I promise not to go looking for something I don't even care about anyway."

"Great! So—on a separate note—are you doing anything… the day after tomorrow?"

"I work early."

"How early?"

"Very early. _Especially_ for you."

"Perfect. We should go to the _Maison de l'art_."

"The…what?"

"It's the art museum uptown. Have you ever been?"

"Uh-uh." A spark like adrenaline ignited in her chest.

"_Perfect_. Can we meet at noon?"

"Uh—yeah."

* * *

><p>Rapunzel wasn't very early, but she arrived before Flynn, and worried this would give away that she had nothing else to do between work and meeting him. It wasn't pitiful, but she worried it might seem that way.<p>

She leaned against a giant green fixture of bars and spheres in front of the art museum's entrance, thinking better of it after a moment—what if that was against some sort of rule?

A group of elderly ladies passed without looking at her, and she felt a cold gust of refrigerated air on her bare legs and sandaled feet as they opened the doors to enter the museum. Her stomach lurched as she began to wonder whether she should have dressed more nicely. Maybe it was her own fault; it did make sense to dress nicely when expecting to be in the presence of venerable art, didn't it?

But it hardly mattered; she'd seen plenty of examples of "nicely dressed" in the customers at work, and none of her clothes—in any combination—constituted "nice."

There were only a few moments for her to fret, as Flynn had soon rounded the corner, and was approaching the spot where Rapunzel hovered next to the fixture she was keeping herself from leaning against. The blue-lit screen of her cell phone told her he was right on time, and his casual clothes told her that even if she really wasn't dressed appropriately, she wouldn't be alone.

"Hey." He pulled his sunglasses off. "Been here long?" He leaned with his shoulder against the spherical fixture.

"Not too long."

"Good. Let's get inside, hm? It's hot."

She passed under the arm he held the door open with, noticing his keys dangling from his index finger.

"Where's your car?"

"I had to put it in a parking garage a few blocks away."

"Oh yeah? Well the bus dropped me off right across the street." She wrinkled her nose at him and smiled.

"Fine—you win this one, but let's see how you feel when we leave and don't have to wait for someone to come pick us up."

She didn't know they were going anywhere after, but she didn't say anything, having reached a counter barring the entrance.

"Two, please." Flynn held his fingers up to the man behind the counter.

Rapunzel pulled her wallet from her bag.

"Two regular admissions? Or would you like to see the visiting exhibit also?"

She hadn't missed the sign for it on the counter. "Just regular admission, please—"

"Aw, no, we should see the extra one too!"

"No… it's fine…." She passed a bill across the counter for her admission.

"Hey, no!" Flynn batted at the bill with one hand and maneuvered around the folds of his wallet with the other. "Is that what this is about? I'm paying, you know." He looked up at the museum employee with a toothy smile: "We want to see the visiting exhibit, too, please."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Sure I did. I'm the one who invited you out. And besides, we can't come here and not see this. Look—" he pointed at the sign on the counter before taking his change—"it's not even going to be here in a month. Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Where's that exhibit headed next?"

"Montreal, I believe."

"See, Rapunzel? It's practically now or never."

She sniggered at that, and tried to let the guilt she felt at being paid for when she wasn't owed anything drown in it.

They had to wear neon pink wristbands so that they'd be allowed into all the exhibits Flynn had paid for. She thought it stood out a lot on his wrist—more than it did against her purple shirt, definitely—but he hadn't said anything about it. She kind of liked the fact that they were both wearing one, almost the way she liked that everyone she worked with also had to wear an apron and black shirts. It swung in and out of her peripheral vision as they walked up a wide staircase.

"How do we do this?" Rapunzel didn't look at him when she asked.

"Do what?"

There was no verb for _art museum_, so Rapunzel just gestured in front of them instead.

"We can start anywhere we want, I think. And look at whatever—"

"I want to look at everything."

"Um, well, we can try."

There were things to read besides everything she already knew she was supposed to look at, and Rapunzel found herself trying to take in every bit. Even though she wanted to give equal attention to everything she came across, she lingered longer over some pieces than others, pondered the names of people she'd never heard of before, and even took out her notebook a few times to write down things she wanted to look up later.

_ Ottoman Empire._

_ Cézanne._

She moved her mouth around the words silently, wondering if she could pronounce them correctly.

It dawned on her at some point that the bottoms of her feet were aching in their sandals, and that she had no idea where Flynn was; she'd sort of forgotten about him once she'd become absorbed in the exhibits.

He wasn't far, though. Just a little behind in the progression of rooms they were being funneled through, he was hunched in front of a photograph that was slightly below eye-level for him.

"Hey, sorry I left you behind."

"No worries."

"Oh. This one—"

"Yeah, I saw you looking at it earlier."

"It's hard to keep from spending too much time with some of them."

"That's because you're trying to spread yourself over anything."

"Well, yeah."

Flynn grinned and motioned for Rapunzel to go ahead of him.

"There's not enough of you." He raised his hands. "No offense."

"What are you doing, then?"

"I'm only focusing on the things that catch my attention. Well—things I'm drawn to."

_Drawn to? _"But—what about the rest of it? How can you stand to miss so much?"

"Hey, I'm not saying it's no good or anything. But I can't help it if I only feel something for this photograph, and that engraving. Or whatever."

Rapunzel pursed her lips. It didn't seem wrong. But she didn't like the idea of skipping over so much to get to the good parts. "Well, can I give you some recommendations? You know, just so you don't miss anything that's _really_ good."

"Of course. I've kind of been following your breadcrumbs already anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"Hm. I know you want to do a speed tour—"

"—it's not about speed—"

"—okay, then, you want to give everything its due, right?"

Rapunzel nodded.

"You can't do justice to any of it that way. I know you're trying, but you can't."

She wasn't looking at him, because it felt like criticism. Like she was doing something—something that seemed like it could only be fun and good—the wrong way. Like she'd sung too loudly or for too long, or danced funny, or drawn heads in such odd ways—

"Even _you_ hover over some more than others, Rapunzel. Like that photograph you caught me at. And I know you took extra time on it. It wasn't even because you'd written something down about it—"

Urgh. He'd noticed that?

"—you were just looking at it. That's why I stopped there. But you _did_ disappear after, so I have no idea what you thought was special in here." He stopped to look around perfunctorily before looking down at her.

_ Urgh._

"So you can give me those recommendations."

Something irked her about the way he smirked at her then, like he thought he had her completely figured out.

She assumed he had the poorest taste while pointing out the gems around the room.

She left him alone to follow the leads she'd given him—or not, for all she knew—and went ahead. And given that he wasn't bothered by being left behind before, she went into the first part of the special exhibit—in a nook roped off from the rest of the gallery—alone, holding her wrist up to an attendant so she wouldn't be stopped.

There were only a few other wrist-banded people besides her, making a circuit of the smallish space. They'd left a flat, cushioned bench empty in the middle of the room, upon which Rapunzel hopped for a few seconds' rest from standing. Absently she reached down to touch a spot against her toe that was being rubbed raw by the sandal strap while she looked in front of her.

The words on the placards below the paintings mounted around her were much too small to see from the bench, but she could see the paintings pretty well—all of them, in fact, if she swiveled around on the bench.

By the time she noticed that Flynn was even in the room with her, she'd folded her legs up in front of her so she could have something to rest her notebook on. He'd swerved into her peripheral vision a few feet away, sitting on the other side of the bench.

He twisted around and he held out a glossy pamphlet.

"Did you get one of these on the way in?"

"No." She took it from him and unfolded it, still twisted around. "I didn't even notice them."

"Tsk, tsk."

"What?"

"That thing's important." He swatted the pamphlet with his index finger. "You're _missing out_."

"Tch." She looked down to scan the headings. "It's about cubism. I've read about that before."

"Oh yeah? What about it?"

Rapunzel made a wide arc with the arm she wasn't leaning on, encompassing the room. "We're looking at it."

"Well, yeah. But what _about_ it?"

"Did you even read this?"

He folded an arm across his chest, and propped his chin on his fist. Rapunzel bristled at the way his eyebrows shifted upward.

"It's the style, see." She looked away from him, and felt calmer as she looked around at the color and pronounced geometrics around her. "It's about showing all facets of something at once." She looked back at him, wanting to feel smug for being able to explain herself with confidence.

But instead it was just pleasing to see that he wasn't doing the annoying thing with his face anymore; it made her feel too warm, like she was about to begin to perspire. He was nodding minutely as he looked around. Then he was turning back to catch her at watching him.

"So—see—I already know about it." She swiveled back around and hunched over her notebook, trying to make herself focus as quickly as possible on the place where she'd stopped. It was all just muddled pencil strokes, though.

Flynn swung his legs over the bench so that he was facing the same direction Rapunzel was. He crossed his legs, and the angle he made with his knee touched the hem of her shorts, so she could feel him inhaling and moving in a tickle of fabric on her thigh.

She was scared to move: scared she might accidently bump into his leg; scared to stop the faintest of sensations that reminded her she'd never been so close to him, and relatively alone.

Someone with squeaking shoe soles entering the nook snapped her out of it, and she was grateful.

"What've you got going here?" Flynn was looking down at her notebook.

She didn't try to hide it; she wouldn't have tried to hide it from anyone who cared to look. She hadn't been afraid like that in a long time.

"I like this one." She nodded at the painting directly in front of them.

"You're making a copy?"

"Yes. But not to keep it. I just want to… I don't know."

"Are you in art school or something?"

"No." She shook her head. "No."

"I thought maybe you were trying to imitate the style or something."

"Oh. No, I like the style, but it's more than that. There's just something about the man and the woman that's fascinating."

Flynn looked ahead. "You like that the lady is half made of water. And that the man is half made of rock."

"They're not _half- made_ of anything."

"Uh, yeah, they are."

"No, no, no. You can see that she's a woman, but she's _like_ the ocean. Same with the man; he's _like_ stone."

"How do you know, Rapunzel?"

"Just look at it!" She watched him narrow his eyes and tilt his head a bit before he looked back down at her notebook.

"That—" he nodded in the direction of her lap "—is pretty good."

"You think so?" She crammed her fingers into the short, choppy hair at the back of her head. "It's just a bit of imitation."

"Yeah, but when I look at it, I know what it's about."

She couldn't stop watching the way he looked at the paper she'd drawn on, even though she suddenly felt like something of hers was indecently exposed under his examination.

"It's like it's being straight with me, when all these others are trying to make me guess."

"I don't know where you got _that_ from." She looked away as soon as he moved, and tried to still her thoughts so that she wouldn't say anything embarrassing to him. She settled on: "No one's ever told me anything like that before."

"Whatever. I bet people say nice things about your art all the time."

_My art_. Rapunzel thought about the drawings on the chalkboards she made at work, the pictures she sometimes absently left in marker on the papers cups, and all the things she'd made growing up that she alone dared to think were lovely.

"Yeah, they do. But not like that."

Rapunzel had time to inhale twice before Flynn slapped his knees with the flat of his palms and stood up.

"I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"

"Uh—"

"Let's go find some food."

"But—but—what about the rest of it?"

"We can come back."

"What, today?"

"Probably not. Another time."

She was aware of her mouth hanging open a bit, and that she was breathing through it while something like a panic began to build in her.

"Hey—what would be the fun in coming to this museum and devouring it all at once, huh? You'd have no reason to come back."

Rapunzel wrinkled her nose and let out a reedy, high-pitched groan.

"Rapunzel—you have time. Save some of the good stuff for later. He reached a hand down to her. "Come on."

* * *

><p>Even though she knew she ought to take his hand—out of politeness, as she'd seen on tv and in storybooks—she tried to pretend she hadn't noticed and used the flats of her own palms to push herself up. Only once had she ever touched him—and accidentally, at that—and was afraid of what would happen if she did it on purpose; it made her nervous enough when he was close.<p>

"Do you remember what I said about the newspaper?"

"That I shouldn't go looking for an issue I hadn't read all of?"

"You didn't, did you?"

"What?" It didn't hurt that she thought she might do it even though she promised not to, but she could see how it _could_. "How dare you—after I promised—I can't believe you'd even suggest such a thing!"

He _laughed_.

"Seriously, Flynn, my promises are golden."

"Okay, sorry."

"No. I'm offended."

"Maybe the surprise will make you feel better."

She hadn't quite realized she'd been following him, so when they turned, she really was taken aback by what she saw.

"Wow."

"I know. They do a lot to make it seem flashier than it is, but they do a pretty good job of it."

The truth of Flynn's words didn't strike her immediately; she hadn't expected the gold or the grandeur in the off-shooting room he'd led them to. Stepping a little closer, though, she could see what he meant: there were hangings all around with the city's historic insignia splashed across regal purple; the floor was dark, open, and unlit all the way up to a semicircle of purple velvet ropes; every track light in the room was focused on the display at the room's end, and the beams' various angles made it seem like there were rays of sunshine falling on the painting.

Which was unexpectedly small and dark.

Rapunzel drew closer, stopping a few steps away from the ropes. "I think the frame's bigger than the actual painting."

"It's nice, huh? Real gold leaf."

"It's so elaborate."

"But it's not even worth half of what the canvas is alone."

Rapunzel turned to Flynn; he was standing next to her, arms on his hips, looking at the painting without a trace of awe in his expression. "What do you mean?"

He cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "I mean that, uh, if it were being sold, more of its value is attributed to the painting rather than the frame."

"Oh. Is it for sale?" She knew without having to ask that it was probably so expensive she'd never, _ever_ be able to afford it. _Is everything in the museum for sale?_ She'd never thought about that as a possibility.

"God, no. This is a treasure."

Rapunzel was frustrated, knowing nothing about what she was looking at because she'd kept a promise not to go reading about 'the Crown'; it was clear she was looking at _The Crown_ now, so she leaned over the plaque a few feet away so she wouldn't have to ask Flynn any more questions.

_Painted between 1790 and 1805 by Alain Byron Michel, _The Crown_ is the last surviving work of this once-famed figure of the Impressionist movement. The only work of his not housed in a private collection, _The Crown_ was spared the looting and deliberate cultural holocaust of the Phantom Blitz in the early twentieth century._

_ Besides its prominence as the only Michel in existence, it is also the last depiction of the crown of the House of Corona which was modeled on the actual headpiece before its theft and disappearance in 1791._

"Who's crown was it?" In so few words, the piece in front of Rapunzel had become an object of tragedy; she looked at it and felt lonely. "Do you know?"

"It was the crown the princess would wear. Before she became queen or got married off, I guess."

Rapunzel was already turning the page from her cubist imitations to make notes on the plaque so she could look into everything later. _Michel_, _Phantom Blitz_, _House of Corona_. "What do you think happened after that? I mean, did they just get her a new one, or what?"

"Probably not. The whole family was massacred in a coup."

"_What_?"

"You know—people didn't want a monarchy anymore, so they took over the government themselves and killed the royal family."

Rapunzel looked away from him.

"I mean, that's probably an over-simplification of things, but I don't really know all the details."

She shook her head. "I can't believe it."

"Hm?"

"It sounds so violent." Rapunzel had seen people fight with each other with fists and with words—almost every day, from her neighbors, as of late—but never imagined that people could be so cavalier about killing so many people at once. "So cruel."

"Um, excuse me?" Flynn had crossed his arms, and was pointedly looking down at her. "Violent? I seem to recall being put through quite a bit of pain the first time I ever met you." He was tapping the side of his head when Rapunzel looked up at him.

She exhaled something between a sigh and a laugh.

"I know it was hard, but what did you whack me with?"

"Banana bread."

"No!"

"It was frozen." She couldn't help but smile at the way he looked scandalized. She could still remember the solid _thwack_ that reverberated up into her wrist when she swung it into the side of his head.

"Rapunzel. I recovered—luckily for you—but you could've killed me."

"No way!"

"Yes! Absolutely! If you would've hit my head in just the right spot—" He gestured with his finger around his temple "—that would've been the end of me. Right in that doorway."

His mouth was making a funny shape she'd never seen before: a smile without teeth that connected to his eyes in a strange way. It wasn't like the ones she'd seen before, with cocked eyebrows and the shiny surfaces of his teeth. Did he even know he was making this expression? Rapunzel realized that she was smiling too.

"Uh—" Flynn cleared his throat and looked away.

Rapunzel looked at her feet and felt for the back of her head with her free hand.

"I just wanted you to see it—"

"Yeah—"

"I thought you'd like it—"

"Mm-hm—"

"Because it's been out of the museum—"

"Oh—?"

"On tour—"

"Uh-huh—"

"And now it's home."

Rapunzel looked back to The Crown. It seemed so simple—plain, almost—now that she knew its storied history. Then she noticed the light, and it was confusing; she couldn't decide whether the crown was generating its own, or whether it was simply much better at reflecting light than the pillow it rested on.

"Are you still hungry, Flynn?"

"Sure am."

"Okay. Then I think I'm ready to go."

The pink band on Flynn's wrist was again extremely noticeable to Rapunzel, once they were outside the museum, away from the spectacle and distraction of the exhibits. It didn't mean anything now, but they were both still wearing them.

Then, with a fibrous-sounding _rip_, Flynn had pulled himself loose of it.

A tumult that she didn't even have time to _try_ to understand surged through her before he placed the torn pink paper in his pocket.

And all inside her was still again.

* * *

><p><strong>Note: <strong>Alternate/fake history for an alternate/fake universe.

Also:

I know none of the action in this chapter was set in the coffee place where Rapunzel works, but I feel like I should address the "Coffee Shop AU" label anyway.

I didn't know that coffee shop/barista AU was even a thing when I started writing this. But apparently it's a fan fiction trope that I've somehow never come across before, so I'm not sure how many others there are in the _Tangled_ category. That being said, Rapunzel's given job is a case of me writing "what I know"; I was a barista all through college. So when I decided I needed her to have something part-time that would facilitate some socialization and a way for her to run into Flynn every now and then, the coffee shop environment seemed like a perfect fit. And now I find that it fits into some trope—it's actually a thing. Huh.

Hey, I don't want to forget to thank my lovely (guest-status) reviewers, **James Birdsong** and **Ashe**. You guys rock my socks. And thanks for following and favoriting this story; that rocks my socks too.

Comment as you will.

More soon. 2-18-13


	7. Find a Place to Take

Find a Place to Take

_Things I have paid for:_

_Ice Cream._

_Water._

_Popcorn._

_Tiny bamboo plants._

On the other side of the page, _Things Flynn has paid for:_

_Museum admission._

_Coffee cup from museum._

_Pasta Dinner._

_Admission to hedge maze._

_Movie Tickets._

_Slushies from food cart._

She debated scratching the coffee cup off the list; she hadn't actually seen him pay for it, and she did think it suspicious that he'd presented it to her only once they were well out of the museum and on their way to his car. It hadn't even come in a plastic bag.

"All done?"

Rapunzel looked over her shoulder at Melina. It was early afternoon on a weekday, and the cafe was dead. "Yeah. Here you go."

Melina took Rapunzel's notebook and sat down at the table across from her. "Hmm."

"I've only paid for two more things than he has." She said it in defense, because she knew what Melina had to be thinking.

"Mm-hm."

"He's being polite."

"What's a hedge maze?"

"Oh! It was this neat _maze_ made completely of really tall bushes! I saw an ad for it in the paper and-"

"He took you there."

"Yeah, it was so much fun. It took us, like, two-and-a-half hours to find our way out. And they had a garden there, too-"

"Sounds romantic."

"It wasn't romantic. It was just fun. We're not like that. I told him the names of the flowers I recognized."

"And he was interested?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention to him."

"What about 'tiny bamboo plants'?"

"We've got a bet going on who can make their bamboo grow faster. They had them for sale at a flea market we found in these tiny little pots."

"He's growing plants with you?"

"No, no, we're competing. We take pictures of them every day and send them to each other as proof that they're still alive."

Melina raised her eyebrows.

"Okay, I admit that it sounds funny, but he's just my friend."

"Have you ever kissed him?"

Rapunzel shook her head.

"Hugged him?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

Rapunzel looked down. "I don't know, Melina." She pushed around a stray flake of croissant that had fallen from Melina's plate. "I wouldn't even know what to do."

"Rapunzel, it's not like there's a handbook or anything."

"It doesn't matter. It's nice to have him as a friend. I've never had anyone to just hang out with. You know, outside work. He's frustrating sometimes, but we have a good time together."

"Well that's good, I guess."

Rapunzel nodded, taking her notebook back. She hoped she'd proven Melina wrong: she was not dating Flynn Rider.

"Just don't let him make you do anything _you _don't want to do."

"Of course not!" She felt a little funny saying it; a month and a half ago, she had been trying to convince herself of reasons to _not_ trust or speak to him.

Melina picked another piece off her croissant; Rapunzel saw it as an opening.

"Hey, can I ask you a funny question?"

"Go for it."

"Do you know how much sets of plates run?"

"Psh. No idea. Why?"

"Because I need a new set. My last one broke last night."

"You've broken all your plates?"

"Not on purpose. And I only had three to begin with."

"Geez. My mom would kill me if I broke _any_ of our plates. She's very touchy about the dinnerware." She shrugged.

"Oh."

"So how'd you do it?"

"Break my plates? I have no idea. Two of them fell off my table, and one of them fell off my kitchen counter. I could have sworn they weren't hanging off the edge or anything. Maybe my apartment's crooked."

"I don't know- that sounds kind of creepy."

She asked even though it was exactly how she felt. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Like, sometimes things happen that you can't explain. And it's creepy. Like something you can't see is doing it."

"Ew."

"I know! Hey, has anyone died in your apartment?"

"Not while I've been there."

"Yeah, but before- I think they have to tell you about things like that."

"I don't know who would have told me. I've never even met my landlord. He left the key to my place under a pot outside the building."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Safe, huh?"

"Geez, Rapunzel, I'm not used to hearing you sound so cynical."

"Well I have good reason. I leave notes on his door sometimes, but he never follows up or anything."

"What, like hate mail? 'You're a terrible landlord'?"

"No, about my apartment. I think there's something wrong with the electrical wiring. My lights and my ceiling fan are always turning on and off, and sometimes I hear this really weird humming-"

"Humming?"

"Well, not humming, exactly. It's more like something I can feel, like a vibration- in the air maybe."

Melina shrugged her shoulders and shook her hands out. "Well I hope it's your electricity. Because that sounds really creepy."

* * *

><p>Even though her neighbors were being especially loud, Rapunzel flew out of her apartment and down the stairs too fast to tell whether they were arguing; Flynn was waiting outside.<p>

His head popped out from behind the hood of his car when she closed her building's door behind her.

"Hey, Rapunzel."

"Hi. What are you doing?" She crept around the lifted hood, curious; she'd never seen the guts of a car before.

"Changing the headlight. Don't want to get a ticket." He was bent over, his arm wedged among the grimy black and gray of parts Rapunzel could not put names to.

"Huh. I never thought about _those_ lights going out before."

"Yep. Just like regular lamps." He moved his shoulder and his arm in a way that reminded Rapunzel of opening a jar- only sideways.

"Hey, speaking of lights, do you think it's normal-"

"Aw, _shit_."

"What? What happened?"

He held his right arm to his chest, clutching his wrist. "The plastic in there broke." He held his hand between them, palm up; blood was pooling in the middle.

"You should clean that. Do you have anything in your car?"

"Nope." He tipped his hand over so that the excess blood in his palm fell with a tiny splash onto the pavement.

"Oh, gross. Come on, you can wash it off in my sink." Rapunzel walked to the building door without looking back. She wasn't even sure he had followed her until he caught the door behind her. It felt strange that someone else was about to enter her apartment; the only other person to be inside with her since she moved in was her social worker. But her social worker wasn't like Flynn; Flynn didn't know everything about her; Flynn wasn't there because it was his job; Flynn wasn't a woman. "The bathroom's just in there." She stood aside so Flynn could walk in behind her. "No, that's the closet- the one on the right."

Flynn went inside without closing the door behind him. She could hear the water turn on.

She wasn't sure what she should do. Her eyes flitted around the place, making sure there was nothing embarrassing lying around. No, there were no stray pairs of underwear lying on the floor, no half-finished glasses of water, no scraps of paper with embarrassing drawings turned upward for anyone to see.

"Hey, do you have anything I can dry my hands with?" Flynn's head poked around the door. "Preferably something you don't mind getting a little blood on?"

Rapunzel brought a few paper towels to the bathroom and leaned in. "How is it?"

"'Tis but a flesh wound.'" He smiled and paused as if waiting for a reaction from her; when she said nothing: "I got myself pretty good. I just need to stop the bleeding and cover it up."

She made a hissing sound, sucking air in through her teeth.

"Don't worry- it's my own damn fault. Should've worn gloves."

As Flynn looked back down at his palm, Rapunzel checked the bathroom. It was tiny, so she could see everything from where she stood in the door. She knew there might be a little bit of toothpaste on the edge of the sink, and that her towels didn't match- but otherwise she thought it looked alright.

"So... are you going to get a ticket?"

"Only if I get caught." He looked back down to his hand in the sink. "And I do _not_ want to get caught."

"But can you even change it right now?" She looked down at his hand.

"Yeah, I'll just use a towel or something so I don't get the plastic again. And then we can go- where did you say we were going?"

"Well-" Rapunzel inhaled all the way to try and kill her nerves "-why don't you give it a while to feel better and, uh, stop bleeding?"

His right eyebrow was arched upward when she looked.

"You know, we're already here, and I have a chess set, and if we don't leave right now you can just rest your hand and leave the light until later." She bit her lip. "And, you know, not get stopped by the police."

"Hmm. You make a tempting offer." He crossed his arms, clutching the paper towel in his hand. "But I don't know how to play chess."

"Really?" She tried not to sound too delighted; it was rare that she had one up on anyone. "I could teach you."

"Hmm, okay- on one condition."

"What?"

"I get to choose a game, too."

"Ha! I don't have any other games."

Flynn held up an index finger. "Hold that thought."

Rapunzel moved out of his way so he could leave the bathroom. When he'd reached the front door he turned around. "I'll be right back, just- hold on." He shut the door behind him, and Rapunzel listened to his footfalls disappear as he went down the stairs.

She realized after a second that it was ridiculous of her to stay put until he came back. But she didn't know whether to sit on the couch, stand somewhere, or what to do with her hands. The neighbors next door were definitely squabbling. She wanted a glass of water.

_That's it! I'll pour us glasses of water._

Standing at the tap, waiting for the second glass to fill up, it hit her: he wasn't coming back.

What could he have possibly gone out for? To get something from his car? Why?

The familiar feeling of dread and disappointment- in which her stomach entered a freefall, independent of the rest of her- sunk in, and she leaned on the counter with both her hands.

_Of course he took off. What was I thinking, asking him to hang out here? _She looked over her shoulder at her compact apartment, taking note of all the things that might make someone want to leave: the water stains on the ceiling; the peeling paint on the walls near the air vent; the unvarnished wooden floors; the tiny gap in the wall near the floor where she knew bugs liked to hide. _And anyway, we don't do that. I've never been to wherever it is he lives- I don't even _know _where he lives!_

_Turn it down a notch, Rapunzel. You're always taking things too far. Acting out of turn. It's unseemly._

Even though the last remark came from the same place as Rapunzel's thoughts, the voice was not her own. Mother had been right all the times she'd said that.

But Flynn didn't make fun of her when she sometimes misunderstood simple things, he was fun to talk to, he had nice hair, and she liked the way he walked. It was hard not to feel excited to have him in her apartment. She was so stupid. _Flynn_ was so stupid.

_Overeager, that's what I am. But it's not my fault! How am I not supposed to do stupid things when I never had-_

"Hey, sorry I took so long."

She hadn't even heard him coming up the stairs.

"Uh, is everything alright?"

She nodded as she took a sip of water. "Yeah, I just- you were gone so long, I thought you took off or something."

"Oh." He closed the door behind him. "Sorry. I had to move my car; you can't park outside for more than twenty minutes."

"I didn't know that."

"There's a sign outside. When you drive a car, you'll see that you're constantly keeping an eye out for signs with instructions on how _not_ to get ticketed."

She smiled, unsure of whether she would ever drive a car.

"Anyway, I had to get these." He held a small box out to her. "Cards. Have you ever played?"

Rapunzel shook her head as she took the box from him to inspect the symbols on it. "These were in your car?"

"Sure. You never know when you might need them to get out of a pinch."

"What kind of a pinch could these possibly get you out of?"

"Ah-ah. That's backstory."

'Backstory' was what Flynn had called their 'safe word'. It was what either of them used to stop the conversation from venturing too far into their personal backgrounds. It frustrated her at first, but she'd found uses for it too; it was nice to be able to talk to someone without having to venture into topics she didn't care to, because she had a social worker for that. And it was equally nice to talk to someone who didn't know so many sordid details about her life. Rapunzel thought Flynn probably felt the same about himself, so she didn't mind the boundary.

"Fine. But if you have these in your car, shouldn't you also have practical things like gloves?"

"Ah, Rapunzel, you're a fast learner." He wagged his injured hand at her; the paper towel looked like it had dried stuck to his cut. "But no. I'd rather have the cards."

A thud sounded through the wall, and the voices next door rose.

"Maybe you could put on some music?"

They played a game called Speed on her table until the streetlights outside came on. Flynn played slowly with her at first, giving her a chance to understand the rules, but sped up the more competitive she got. Rapunzel liked the cards, with their strange symbols and drawings of kings and queens. She liked the counting and the matching and all the noise they made slapping their cards down. She didn't think she'd ever made that much noise in her apartment.

"Gah!" Flynn drew his hand to his chest. "I know I beat you, but that doesn't mean you can hit me."

"Oh, please. You're telling me I hit you harder with my little hand than you did putting your last card on the table?" Rapunzel brandished the card she hadn't managed to get on the table before Flynn put his last one down. "Anyway, you _barely_ beat me."

He groaned and clutched at it.

"Fine, I'm sorry I pounded your hand whilst trying to slaughter you at speed."

"I suppose you're forgiven." He gathered up the deck into a single stack. "Want to see a trick?"

"A trick?"

He nodded without looking up from the cards he was shuffling.

"Okay."

Rapunzel wasn't sure where the whole exercise of memorizing the face of a random card from the deck was going.

"Is this your card?" He held up the queen of clubs.

"Nope." She crossed her arms across her chest. "My card is-"

"No, no, don't tell me." He half stood up out of his chair to lean across the table, bracing himself with one hand spread flat. "At least give me one more chance." His hand reached for her, then _just_ touched the shell of her ear. "Is it this one?"

Making sure to relax her shoulders- which had tensed embarrassingly at the approach of his hand- and to inhale, she focused on the card he'd apparently pulled from some space behind her ear.

_Two of clubs_. Even though she'd never been witness to a card trick, she couldn't believe that Flynn could be some kind of magician. "How'd you do that?"

He sank back into his chair and crossed his arms. "Magic."

"Oh, come on." And just as she'd said it, the apartment went dark. She was startled into stillness, as she usually was when these types of things happened, until she remembered that she wasn't alone. "Is this more of your 'magic'?"

"No." He whispered, strangely.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Um- okay, hold on." She stood and turned around with her arms stretched in front of her; it took only a few shuffling steps to find the wall.

"Careful." Flynn was only a few feet away behind her, but he seemed farther. Or maybe he only _sounded_ farther?

She ran her hands over the cool surface of the wall, certain she should have found it sooner, until- _flick_.

"How did that happen?" Flynn was pointing to her left, where she'd found the lightswitch.

"I turned the lights back on." She stepped back to her chair, trying not to pay attention to the little crinkles his nose made when he squinted.

"But how did they turn off in the first place?"

She shrugged.

"You're not bothered by this, are you?"

"Sure I am. I can't fix it, though- I don't know anything about electricity and wiring and stuff."

"How is this a problem with the _electricity_? Your light switch was actually _moved_."

She shrugged as she sat down.

"You're not bothered by this, are you?"

"Yeah, I am. But-" _how can I say without sounding crazy?_ "-I'm bothered by a lot of things that I don't understand. Like the people who sleep in the bus shelters, dead cats in the middle of streets, waste management, and vaccines. But I've got to pick and choose what I really fret over; things that aren't going to cause harm or disaster if ignored are not my priorities." She took a breath, trying not to shudder. "I'm too bothered by what goes on in here to even start to do research on it at the library, but none of these things have ever hurt me- so I'm going to just let things be." She changed her focus from where she'd been keeping it, at the tip of Flynn's shoulder, to chance a look at his face. It was kind of neutral, she thought. "So if nothing's wrong with the electricity or anything else some technician can see to, I'm just going to tolerate whatever the problem is until my lease is up."

"You know, you never struck me as such a pragmatist."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after hearing you talk about newspapers and seeing you react to good music- I don't know- I pegged you as some sort of flighty dreamer-"

"_Hey_!"

"Strike that, then. _Idealist_."

"Fine. So?"

"You're just dealing with that weirdness so reasonably. I wouldn't feel the same."

Rapunzel didn't know what to say; she didn't feel like talking about herself anymore.

But Flynn started up again: "There was this lady who would come and sit on the floor by my bed some nights. I couldn't sleep while she was there. I couldn't move. I couldn't even close my eyes. None of the other boys ever saw her. They thought I was just making her up, telling stories to scare the younger kids."

"Other boys?"

"Group home. Anyway, I knew what I saw. There's a feeling that you get. Like the one I had when the lights went out." He cocked his head back and forth, as if loosening knots in his neck. "How do you keep living here?"

By the roots in her scalp, Rapunzel gently grasped at her hair. "Sometimes it's just best to forget, I think."

"Yeah?"

She nodded.

"Well, then-" he drummed his hands against the surface of the table "-I'm game. Besides, you've got a chess set that needs playing, don't you?"

While she set the pieces on opposite ends of the board Flynn hunched over the floor where all the cards lay scattered. She didn't ask how they'd gotten there, and Flynn didn't say anything until he resurfaced at the table, cards back in their floppy box.

"Okay. So how do I win?"

While she talked about the kings and queens in her game, she took _Flynn's Music_ out of the radio. He gave her a half-smile when she put _Let's Be Friends_ on her radio that made her brush her hair aside self-consciously.

"You're not bad; I've just had more practice."

Having lost a 'warm-up game,' a 'practice game,' and a 'for real' game all in quick succession, Flynn had begun to clutch at chin. She knew he was probably trying to figure out how to get around her attacks to beat her, but she also suspected he was pouting.

"Oh, I _know_ I'm not bad; I'm just getting started."

"That's possible. I mean, I don't think you're bad, but my frame of reference is pretty limited. I've only ever had a few opponents." '_Few' is generous._ "And I'm kind of a champion at this."

"Well- your frame of reference is limited, you said. Maybe you were just matched up against some piss-poor chess players." He touched the top of his one remaining knight. "Maybe I'm about to give you your first real challenge."

He advanced his knight without taking his eyes off her. She immediately took it with a pawn.

After Rapunzel had toppled his king for the third time, Flynn clapped his hands against his eyes and groaned- then winced and squeezed his cut palm.

"How's that feeling?"

"Shitty." He sighed and made himself look peaceful. "But I'll live."

She hoped he could see her eyes roll.

"Actually, I kind of feel like getting some air. Want to go for a ride?"

Using the camera flash light on Flynn's phone and the sequined black scarf Rapunzel remembered him casting off into his back seat, the new bulb was installed in the headlight.

"Where are we going?" They hadn't even taken off yet, but Rapunzel was already rolling down her window, and Flynn was plugging his music in.

"For a ride, I told you."

She couldn't help but smile back at him, and felt the warmth in her cheeks that followed.

And it really was nice, she thought, to be able to put herself in someone else's hands- to space out, just for a bit. So often she was always concerning herself with her whereabouts, the people around her, money, the temperature, her appearance; it was liberating to sit back in Flynn's passenger seat, music and air roaring against her, and think only of that.

She didn't say anything until Flynn crept past a large, old house hanging on the corner of a street, next to a long, flat church, and started looking for parking. "Where are we?"

"Grape Street."

Pushing her hair away from her face, she craned her neck to look at the house on the corner. _Sunshine Apartments_, a sign in at the front steps read.

"Come on, Rapunzel. We're about to have an adventure." Flynn opened the door for Rapunzel, who was distracted and hadn't even noticed him get out of the car.

They walked down the sidewalk through orange circles of streetlight, then jaywalked to the other side of the street.

"Do you live here?"

He chuckled in a way that made Rapunzel wish she hadn't asked. "Sure don't." He motioned for her to follow him up the stairs to the porch. "But I used to know someone who did."

The handle on the door only jerked around when Flynn tried to turn it. Rapunzel couldn't see his face for the light from the foyer within shining through the windows behind him.

"Okay, I didn't want to give you any clues before we got there, but it doesn't look like there's any other way..." He walked to the fire escape ladder at the side of the porch and pulled at it with both hands, as if trying to make sure it held to the side of the building. "I want to get to the roof, so we're going to have to climb."

"Is this allowed, Flynn?"

"Strictly speaking, probably not. And _shh_, we don't want anyone to come out and find us using the ladder."

"Can't you just call your friend and tell her to let us in?"

"Oh, I love how you already assume it was a woman-"

"I'm not wrong, am I?"

"-and anyway I said that I knew someone who _did_." He made a sweeping motion with his arm and open hand toward the ladder. "Past tense."

"Oh, sure, send me up this shady ladder first." In the first few steps up, she was surprised to feel not unsure of the metal rungs, but of her own footing and grip. She felt him climb up after her when he started to speak.

"That's the safe spot, little miss. Say you slip. I'm right behind you to make a timely rescue."

She could see him if she looked over her shoulder and down. "So if I let go and fall straight backwards?"

"I'll grab you arm or your foot or something."

"Sure." She continued up.

"Can you get onto this patio?"

"Yeah- what for?" It was just a long patio off the side of the house, not nearly the roof above the third level she thought they were aiming for.

"The door leads into a common room, and if it's unlocked, we can get to the stairs inside."

"Why don't you check? This _adventure_ was your idea."

"Oh, come on, you're smaller, probably faster than me, and cute, too. You definitely have a smaller chance than me of getting hit if someone catches you doing something illegal."

"This is illegal?"

"Only if we get caught. And we're much more likely to get caught hanging off these ladders than sitting pretty on the roof."

She made sure to give a pronounced _urgh_ as she swung her legs over the patio's railing. Through the high window on the door she could see that no one was sitting on the couches within, but the door was locked from her side. The same was true of the second and third floors (Flynn had her check).

The flat roof of the house was enclosed by a knee-high wall on all sides, there were a few tattered lawn chairs set up in the middle, and the trapdoor in the corner was propped open.

"I think someone's been up here." Rapunzel stood near the ladder as Flynn came up the rest of the way after her. In case they were discovered, she wanted to be able to make a quick exit.

"Well, people do live here."

"What if they come back, huh?"

"We'll just pretend we live here too." He dusted his hands off, wrinkling his nose at the cut on his palm. "Rapunzel, have you even looked around?"

She turned. "What are you-?"

And that was all she could manage once she saw the lights and shapes sprawled out around her.

On the roof of a three-story building, they were just high enough off the ground to be able to see the lights of the bridge and on the boats in the harbor; but they weren't so high up that the towering buildings of the financial district, the taller apartment buildings, and the castle in the historic district didn't feel imposing and grand. The silhouettes and varying degrees of darkness everything created as they stacked up upon one another in the island's limited space touched Rapunzel, as did the electric light peeking out of random windows and poles at odd intervals.

"Isn't it something? The view?"

Rapunzel nodded, rotating on her toes to take in all 360 degrees of the sight.

"You've never seen the city like this, have you?"

"Uh-uh."

"I guess it's hard if you never have a reason to be in any of the skyscrapers after dark. This roof is in the perfect spot, though."

"Yeah."

"How long have you lived in Corona?"

Her back was facing him when she asked, and she fleetingly considered claiming "backstory". But it was only a small question. "About a year and a half."

"You've got six months on me- and you've never seen the city at night. Shame."

"Well- I never have had a reason to be in any of those buildings," she gestured at the skyscrapers with one arm, and the castle turrets with the other, "or near a good window, I guess." She could see from where she stood the hospital she'd stayed at for the first nine months she'd been in Corona- but she didn't remember being able to see well out through the metal grating on her floor's windows. "So you haven't lived here your whole life either? How'd you find this?"

"I move around a lot. You learn to like exploring. It kills time."

She stopped circling to look at him. He'd sounded hollow when he said it- not the way she thought someone in the breeze and electric glow of the city from their vantage point should sound, she thought.

He wasn't looking at her; he was facing the castle and the historic district.

"What else kills time?"

He looked at her then, and she reached up to pull aside the hair the breeze had blown over her face.

"Reading, listening to music, meeting girls-"

Rapunzel wrinkled her nose at him.

"-making friends."

* * *

><p>Note: Hearty thanks to fictionaddict24, Tangledgirl, and the venerable Beta Gyre for reviewing the last chapter. Thanks for adding this to your favorites list, and thanks for adding this to the other stories you follow. Thanks also to anyone who likes the posts I make about this on Tumblr; those little hearts make me smile.<p>

I still hate this thing's title. What the hell was I thinking.

That's that. Send questions to me at .com, if you have any. More soon. 3/23/13


	8. Take a Place

Take a Place

"Backstory."

It was what Flynn called their "safe word". He laughed like he was making a joke, and Rapunzel asked what it meant, because it was one she didn't understand. It meant to stop; to go no further; to abort the task at hand. At first it was just a placeholder for answers neither one of them felt like giving. Rapunzel thought it was deceptive and cold until she learned how it could protect her. It also taught her the boundaries of Flynn's life that marked where she could and could not pass. It probably taught Flynn about her own history in the blank shapes of her mother, her lack of education, and the occasional faux pas she still made.

And it was her immediate response to the question Flynn asked ("I liked that painting you had in your place of that frog thing. What was it?") while he drove her home from their rooftop excursion.

"And anyway, it was a _chameleon_, not a frog."

He'd chuckled or said something snarky she couldn't remember, because it had put an instant damper on her mood.

What was wrong with her? _Poor Pascal_.

* * *

><p>Rapunzel had business to attend to- or she would soon. Her Social Worker had paid her an unexpected visit, separate from the ones she expected every week.<p>

With a rough cotton swab, she'd brushed the inside of her cheek.

"Collecting genetic material," she'd explained, "to legally establish that you're Gothel Krause's heir and daughter."

The cabin was being sorted out, at last. The last time she'd seen it was the day she raced out the front door in a fit of determination and anger. Besides Rapunzel's understanding that she didn't own the cabin she'd spent her life in, or the land on which it was situated, she was afraid to go back, knowing it would be quiet and dusty from its abandonment.

"So she _did_ own it?" There had been no deeds, she was told. No paper trail.

"_Technically_ it was your mother's estate. The current name on the property deed is Udolpho Krause, who was married to your mother before he died."

"My father?"

"That's unlikely; he died years before you were born."

Rapunzel stifled this disappointment easily; Mother had always said her father was dead, anyway.

"But if it can be established that you are Gothel Krause's heir, the estate will be transferred to you."

"You mean _I_ would own it?"

"Yes." Her Social Worker smiled, even though Rapunzel was seized with immediate dread.

"Then I would have to live there?"

"If you wanted to. You could do other things with it."

She wondered: _Sell it, lease it, forget it, burn it to the ground_.

The Social Worker packed up the bit of Rapunzel's genetic material she collected with a cotton swab in a plastic jar of blue liquid, then into her shoulder bag. "It might take a day or two. But just think, Rapunzel- things are about to turn around for you."

There were lots of reasons this would be good for her, the Social Worker told Rapunzel before leaving. This could be a source of income- she could go to school.

* * *

><p>"Hey, I caught you."<p>

"_Caught me_? Am I being chased?" She leaned on the counter as Flynn stepped out of the evening and into the coffee shop.

"Pff, no. But I think I've won our bet." He crossed his arms as he walked toward the counter.

"What do you mean?"

"Your bamboo is dead."

"Is not."

"Well, I didn't get a picture of it this morning, so I have no choice but to assume that it's kicked its bamboo bucket."

"Urgh, my plant is perfectly fine. I didn't have time to take a picture this morning."

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"What? I've been here all day."

"Yuck."

"Got to make the money, friend. _Some _of us work for a living."

He shook his finger at her. "Ah-ah-ah. You know that's-"

"Backstory, yeah, yeah."

The door to the back room swung suddenly on its hinges, and Bastion emerged with an armful of clean dishes. "You need me to charge him for something, Rapunzel?"

"I don't know." She looked back at Flynn. "Are you a paying customer?"

"Yes, yes, fine, fine." He made a show of reaching for his wallet.

She saw him go to the corner he usually liked to take while she took her time writing his name on a cup. She'd been reading a big book about typefaces, and she tried to imitate one with the letters of his name.

The front door opened and another man- much larger- stepped in, sweeping the insides of the cafe with his eyes.

"Hi, there."

His eyes settled on Rapunzel at the sound of her voice.

"How are you this evening?" Gently by the shoulder Bastion steered her back in the direction of the espresso machine.

"What can I get for you, man?"

Rapunzel went back to making Flynn's drink, but watched Bastion at the counter over her shoulder.

"Is there anyone else here?"

Bastion didn't usually look so serious to Rapunzel. But he stood up straight and kept his jaw set while he spoke to the man, so much taller than he. "I'm sorry?"

"Am I the only one in this place?"

"I don't know- I can't see anyone else from here. Did you want to order something?"

The man looked then at Rapunzel, and suddenly he wasn't just a man walked into the cafe for the first time- he was someone she recognized, though vaguely; she still wasn't great at remembering faces.

"What about you, girlie? You seen anyone else in here?"

It was as easy to lie to him as it had been the first time she'd seen him in a pickup truck behind the cafe. "Yeah. People have been coming in and out all night."

"So who're you making that for?" He nodded down at her hands which she'd filled with water. "Him?" He nodded in Bastion's direction.

"No, I'm making it for me."

"And what's that writing-"

The three of them looked back at the glass door at the sound of a few consecutive, bulbous thuds.

Another man stood in the doorway, but outside, pointing down the sidewalk with a wide index finger. Despite the darkness and the eyepatch, Rapunzel knew they must be twins.

They both left without a word. Bastion watched the window for several seconds after they'd disappeared down the street.

The espresso machine clicked and sputtered- Rapunzel's signal to top the cup off and get it out to its owner. But where was he?

"Bastion, you really don't see Flynn out there?"

"Nope." He finally stepped away from the counter. "If I did, I would have pointed him out to that meathead."

"Why would you do that? He seemed…. Well, I don't want to sound too judgemental, but he seemed dangerous."

"Yeah, he did, Rapunzel. Which is why you should leave customers like that to me."

She could tell he wasn't being cruel. But something about the admonishment savored strongly of over-protectiveness. And that made something hot and unpleasant spike in her gut. "What do you mean 'leave them to you'?"

"Just, you know, if they look creepy or off or anything, just let me handle them. You don't know who these people are. I mean, they're just supposed be our customers, but we don't know what they're _really_ up to. Everyone who walks in here is just a stranger." He shrugged his shoulders and pulled at his ponytail to tighten it.

"And you don't think I can handle it."

"Have you dealt with weirdos before?"

"I ride the bus every day, Bastion." She said it to avoid saying 'no', but it felt mean to make that her answer. "And I think it's really judgemental of you to assume that any stranger, however _weird_, is dangerous or something."

"Well I think it's really naive of you not to remember what people are capable of. Especially as a woman."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that, you know, people are more likely to try something on a woman than on a guy."

Rapunzel wanted to say something, to tell him that he was wrong, to tell him that he sounded like her mother, who definitely had been a weirdo- but she couldn't reign in her thoughts enough to do more than bite her lip while she stared at him.

"The dude who just left- you don't think he would have bullied you into talking about who's been to the cafe tonight if I hadn't stepped in?"

"I wasn't going to say anything about Flynn."

"That's not the point, Rapunzel. But why _weren't_ you going to tell him about Flynn?"

"Because he looked mean."

"Exactly!"

"Urgh."

"You didn't know what he was up to. You didn't really know anything about him and that was enough."

"Flynn! Your drink's ready!" She placed it on the counter as firmly as she could without making anything splash out.

"He's not here."

"He couldn't have left. He's probably sitting on the floor, under a table. Or behind the sofa. Or something."

"I don't think so. He was in that corner back there, right? He was gone by the time I started talking to the meathead."

Rapunzel folded her arms.

"He knew what was up. He knows who that guy is, and he doesn't want to be found by him."

She knew it was true. She'd already lied about Flynn once before, on the first day he crashed into the back room of the coffee shop. But she didn't feel like telling Bastion.

"You're friends with him, right? With Flynn?"

"Yeah."

"Well it's probably not my business, but maybe you should think about how much you know about him, too. Even if you trust a person, that won't stop them from hurting you." He moved into the blank space Rapunzel had been staring into. "And I'm only saying it because you're my friend."

She couldn't look up into his face, even though she thought that's probably what she should do. So she looked back at the cup she'd set out on the counter for Flynn, still waiting.

* * *

><p>DNA- Rapunzel had taken the trouble to learn- could indicate several things about a person, including parentage. Her DNA indicated that Mother had not been one of her parents.<p>

The cottage was not hers. Mother had not been hers. _Where is my place? Who _is _my family?_

Her Social Worker had shown up at the coffee shop unannounced, which made Rapunzel uncomfortable enough, and had insisted on driving her back to her apartment when her shift was over.

On the way back to her apartment they talked about things they usually did during their weekly meetings.

It wasn't until they were actually sitting at her table- the Social Worker following her upstairs without asking, which Rapunzel didn't really mind- that she broke the news.

"How are you feeling, Rapunzel?"

She wasn't sure how long the Social Worker had let her stay silent after she'd stopped speaking herself.

"Confused."

"About what?"

"You're sure- I mean, you're absolutely positive that she's not my mother?"

"The tests make it very clear that she _was_ not your mother."

"And it can't tell me who my mother is. I read about that."

"That's right. But there are other ways we can find out who your parents are. And why you weren't raised by them."

Rapunzel nodded. "What's my last name?"

"Still Krause. It's the name on all the records we've created for you."

"Oh."

"Those can be changed, though. We can talk about it."

"What about my things inside the cottage?"

The Social Worker alternated from her attitude of warm concern to one of someone ready to do business. "The property and everything on it are not going to be passed to you. If there are items inside the house you want returned to you, the new owner will have to be contacted."

"Who's that?"

"Whoever Udolfo Krause's next of kin after Gothel was."

"Oh." It was true that she'd wanted her separation from the cottage to last forever as soon as she left it, even if there were things she still treasured inside. She'd meant to get rid of the property as soon as it was hers, but now that she'd been cut off from it so completely, she felt the loss of things she'd started to imagine getting back: her guitar, her chessboard, old notebooks, maybe some tokens of Pascal.

And how unfair it was that someone she'd never met- who didn't even know her- would soon own the guitar she'd been playing since she was eight, or the chessboard she'd painstakingly carved and whittled herself.

Tears she succeeded in blinking away; the lump in her throat she managed to swallow; her nose ran anyway, and she was embarrassed to have to sniffle loudly.

"You know," she looked at the Social Worker for the first time in several minutes, "I spent three months carving a chessboard, when I was ten. My mother described it to me and I wrote down everything she said. I whittled the pieces from the timber we had stocked. I'd never done anything like it before, so I got a lot of cuts and splinters. She told me to stop, that it wasn't worth it.

"But there weren't any other games to play without cards, and I didn't have that much else to do. I had forever to look forward to, which didn't seem so bad when I was ten. But still."

There was a social skills class she'd taken on the Social Worker's advice where they taught her about eye contact. It wasn't polite to do it too much with people you didn't know. People used it to establish trust or authority. They didn't talk about the reason she'd always looked into Mother's eyes: to see inside. Even after Mother, she looked into the eyes of doctors while they talked to try to figure out what exactly they were saying; of the numerous social workers, to try to understand what they actually _meant_; and of customers, when she was trying to figure out whether or not their words were earnest.

She'd never noticed anyone do it to her before, but she could tell that was why the social worker was peering so intently from across the table.

"I've never even thought about it before, but- is the cottage safe? The property, I mean."

"Safe from what?"

"Intruders, criminals, people like that."

"To my knowledge, no one has been there since the investigation ended. But I think it's as safe as it ever was when you lived there. It's so isolated and hard to find."

_Not _that _safe, then. Good. Then I can get this over with._

* * *

><p>Oftentimes in the city, Rapunzel wished she knew how to balance on the two wheels of a bicycle; she envied the way people alternately cruised and zoomed around the streets. And it would have made getting out to the cottage a lot less trouble. Just as she'd found her way to the bridge that led into Corona from her cottage somewhere in the surrounding forests on foot, so she would have to return.<p>

But this time, a map would have helped.

Mother had always gone back and forth between the city and the cottage on foot, but she'd left no discernable path. Rapunzel thought she could see something like markers, though- in a tree with heavy roots like steps, a pile of rocks that made for easy crossing of a creek, and a span of low-hanging branches and vines that made a sort of tunnel- which roughly coincided with marks in neon spray paint left by other outsiders who'd come into these wilds also.

They'd had to do it, what with her only being able to describe where she'd come from so vaguely; even now, as she hiked around underneath leaf-filtered light, she could only clearly remember a long, graveled path that had ultimately led to the highway that became the bridge. And by mid-afternoon she'd long since passed it.

It was so hard to find, even though she knew exactly what she was looking for; this was what the Social Worker must have meant when she implied the cottage was safe from criminals. Which she supposed she was, since she was on her way to take things that didn't _technically_ belong to her. _This new owner won't even know what's missing. What would they even want with my rinky-dink stuff?_ This reasoning seemed more justified to her than the alternative, in which she had no say in what happened to the things she'd called her own for most of her life.

Recognition touched her lightly at first, then landed on her all at once when she finally came upon the cottage. She'd forgotten just how small the clearing was, and how the enclosure around the cottage was even smaller. Besides that, the cottage was not completely visible underneath the overgrown spider plants.

_They need trimming. _She thought it even though she knew it wasn't her place anymore; she'd be gone before long, anyway.

She spared only a grin for battle of greenery that had become her fruit and vegetable garden, not wanting to halt before she was able to reach the front door, feeling the possibility of faltering grow larger inside her as she drew nearer to her old home.

The house key had been denied to her, and of course the door was locked, as it secured a old crime scene- so Rapunzel hoped one of her old secrets would pay off.

With a little patience and determination- she'd found years before- the doorknob could be coaxed to turn after some jiggling and jerking. It was something she'd discovered on accident, and hid from Mother so she wouldn't have to admit that she'd locked herself out.

Sure enough, it allowed her to sneak in again.

Beneath the dust that had gathered on the floor and even the walls, the familiar scent of home greeted her as she closed the door behind her. And the sight of one of her plants dried and brown in its pot was almost enough to break her.

But the muscles it took to push things down and away had been made strong inside the very house she'd re-entered, and she flexed them then. She needed a goal, a design, a line to draw next: _Mother's door- I should close it._

The first door on the left side of the hallway looked exactly as she remembered. In the few seconds she stood in the doorway, her hand on the knob, she noted that Mother must have left her bed undone on the last morning. It looked like such a casual disturbance: her pillows were at angles, and her white sheets were peeled back over her dark red blanket, which reminded her of other sheets she'd since seen her wrapped in. Before she could muster the gumption to walk inside, she closed it off.

Next: _My bedroom._ It was why she had come all the way out, anyway.

If walking into a familiar scent was arresting when she entered the house, it was downright overwhelming when she entered the bedroom she'd grown up in. Even though she'd wanted to keep herself focused and even a little angry while she was in the cottage, all the familiarity of her old personal space crashed down on her. _How could I spend any time here_, she thought, _without crying at least a little?_

She plopped herself stomach-down onto her bed, because it looked squashy and comfortable, just as she'd left it.

Next she knew, her room was dim, her eyes were thick with dried-over crying, and she wasn't wearing any shoes. It hadn't been her intention to spend the night, but getting from the cottage to the highway at night would be out of the question. She felt strangely unbothered by everything as she replaced her kicked- off shoes, though her body and eyes did feel heavy with a tiredness she wasn't sure she'd earned.

From her stock of candles in the storage closet, she collected enough to place in her room and in the kitchen for the evening and lit them on her way outside, where there was still enough light in the sky to walk by.

Her fruit and vegetable garden had pleased her on her way in, and she was eager to see which ones had won out over the others without her supervision. Also, she was hungry, and not for the crackers and smooshy peanut butter sandwich she'd packed for the day's outing.

If any of the shorter growths had survived, Rapunzel couldn't see them through the giant, tangled vines of the gourds and melons. _Water hogs_. The peach trees had done well, as evidenced by the pecked-out remains still clinging to the knobby branches. _Oh well, at least the birds enjoyed them_.

She struggled to tell the difference between a squash and a muskmelon as she crouched among the wide leaves in the near-darkness. And she almost looked past the bulging eyes inches from her head. It was so dim, and he didn't need to camouflage himself against the thick vine to which he clung, anyway.

_Pascal_.

She whispered his name first while squinting at him, wanting to make sure she really was seeing the chameleon she thought she was seeing.

As if to help her along, he changed himself to warm yellow.

Rapunzel scooped him up and held him to her cheek in a sort of embrace.

"It's you."

By the light of a fire it was really too warm for, Rapunzel ate an unripened melon with a spoon while Pascal tried her peanut butter sandwich and crackers.

"I made it at my apartment."

He looked sidelong at her as he chewed.

"It's where I live now. In the city."

Though she'd hugged him and fed him, she had yet to apologize or explain herself. It was hard to turn the guilt and grief she'd endured since last seeing him into words.

"Have you been staying in the garden?"

He grumbled somewhere in his throat so that Rapunzel wasn't sure whether it was assent or just aggressive swallowing. He used to answer her much more readily.

"Fine. I'll stop dancing around it, Pascal."

Though he continued to smack on the peanut butter in his mouth, he looked up at her.

"I'm sorry, but I had to go, Pascal. You know that, don't you?" Rapunzel hugged her knees to her chest and tried to keep looking at him while she spoke. "I couldn't- I was just so angry, and I saw my opening and I took it. I don't think I realized I was really running away until I stopped running, when I found a road. And by then I was too scared to go back. I didn't know that she wasn't going to get back up, Pascal. I thought she would come after me to bring me back."

Against her knee she rubbed her nose and sniffed wetly.

"They kept me in a hospital for a while. I don't think they knew what to do with me. They asked me a lot of questions, and I didn't even know how strange I probably sounded. I didn't know they found the cottage until they brought Mother to me. They said I had to confirm it was her, Pascal. And she looked terrible, all waxy and stiff. I didn't know she was dying. I would have stayed if I knew she was about to die.

I'm so sorry."

Even as she cried into her own knees, she could feel Pascal climb up her pant leg to rest his tiny head on top of hers.

* * *

><p>In the morning, Rapunzel swung her guitar behind her, over her backpack, which contained only a few things she'd picked out of her belongings to take with her, and started the light hike back to the road with Pascal perched on her shoulder.<p>

As she left the clearing, she didn't look back over her shoulder at the cottage. After eighteen years, she doubted her memory of it would ever fade.

"It's easier getting out this time, Pascal. Can't you hear the noise from the city?"

He clung especially hard to her shoulder. There was no longer a curtain of hair in which he could hide.

"It's all the cars, and machines, and people."

Pascal made an unmistakable grumble next to her ear.

"Don't worry, Pascal. It's nice to be out where all the people are."

Rapunzel thought about that as she stepped over thick roots and errant ferns. It was nice to be places full of the warmth and noise of company- even if the company wasn't exactly _hers_. Her apartment wasn't stifling, but it seemed like a sad little nook in the city she otherwise found interesting.

"My apartment's okay, Pascal, but we don't have to stay there all the time. I go to work, and to the library, and sometimes I go places with my friend Flynn."

"_Mmrrrrrrrrr_."

"I'll introduce you. He's really nice." Introducing him to Bastion and Melina at the coffee shop would be a little more difficult, since they didn't allow animals inside. She'd have to think of something to do with Pascal while she was on the clock.

Rapunzel walked all the way back into the city; no one stopped on the way to offer her a ride, and she didn't try to wave any cars down. Even when she got within reach of the busline, she kept walking. Pascal changed on her shoulder to blend in with her faded purple shirt, but she felt his head graze her cheek as he looked around them.

All the way to a park near the library she walked, really feeling the heat of the summer afternoon, and the ebb and flow of crowds around her. There was an ice cream truck at the corner, so she bought a popsicle that she and Pascal split beneath a shady tree.

While Pascal examined the manicured grass around them, Rapunzel turned her phone on, now that she was again in range of the city's phone towers. The battery was on its last legs, but she was really only curious about the time.

_3 missed calls_.

Flynn, Flynn, and Flynn.

_4 messages_.

A picture of Flynn's bamboo, still green and short.

_Didn't see you at the coffee shop this morning, text or call if you're up for dinner_, from Flynn.

_There's a movie about ghosts at the theater if you want to go see it this afternoon_, from Flynn.

_Let me know if you' can work tomorrow night- someone's sick_, from Bastion.

She hadn't realized how steady her contact with Flynn had become. And she hadn't even told him she was taking off for a bit. What would she have told him, though? _I'm going to the abandoned cottage where my mother died after keeping me locked there all my life to pick up some of my stuff_. Nope.

Anyway, wasn't freedom coming and going as one pleased?

Pascal scrambled up Rapunzel's arm as a few pigeons landed nearby.

_More_, she thought, _or less_.

* * *

><p>Note: At first writing this chapter was like pulling teeth; then it was like getting a head wound to stop bleeding. If that makes any sense. This wasn't even supposed to be a chapter, but I think it has a lot of important stuff I wanted to include about Rapunzel in it. I'm excited for the next chapter, since I started this story just to get to it.<p>

Shoutouts are required for **Song of a Free Heart**, **tabbykatroses**, **Tangledgirl**, and the mysterious **Ashe**. Your reviews are little treasures. Thank you to those who have favorited/followed this story in the interim since the last chapter. They only make me want to write more.

And, hey, everyone: if you're reading this story, I'm equal parts sorry and thankful for you. Sorry because I have got to be one of the worst updaters ever. Thankful just because you're readings the story. Truly.

10/6/13


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